In Warm Colors
by Dr. Fluffmuffin
Summary: There are few constants in Lloyd's life, but there were some things he expected to stay the same. Of course, things never stay the same for Lloyd.
1. Chapter 1

When the cherry blossoms bloom, the boughs are so full, they look like clouds, pink in the shadows. By that time, Kai is dead. He walked out the monastery's doors one morning and never walked back in, and Lloyd wishes he'd gone with him, just to do something about it.

Kai's last spring blooms slowly, with winter's chill lingering in the hollows of the hills. His last days are the last in the longest period of peace in Lloyd's life. No one knew it then, or else Lloyd might've appreciated it more.

At that time, he wanders down the mountain before the monastery, waiting for the sky to fall upon his head. The day is bright and otherwise cheerful, but Lloyd almost hears a rumbling in the white clouds, a foreboding warning hidden in their shade that something is going to go wrong.

It keeps him restless, eyes darting and refusing to keep his gaze on any one thing. Meandering more than walking, he hikes down the steps with a floppy sort of lollygag, wanting urgency but unable to think of a reason for it. He isn't used to the lack of conflict and had grown sick of the quiet in the monastery. The thought is tragic considering his age, but at this point, he's accustomed to nearly and always losing his loved ones. Who has time for quiet in a life like that?

It's been close to six months since the march of the oni, and Lloyd fully expects another megalomaniac to attempt a takeover of Ninjago by the end of the year. Given the land's track record, the prediction is not inaccurate, and most of Lloyd's frustration is simply in that nothing has happened yet.

The monastery is unbearably quiet today, as everyone had something to do but him.

Lloyd isn't bothered by this, and he tells himself as much as he reaches a level where the mountain's steps are unnecessary. Walking across the rock, he glances down to see a bundle of wildflowers growing between the cracks. They're purple and full, unlike the growth around it, and Lloyd admires it distantly, beyond his many trains of thought. Anything that grows at this height is going to be scraggly at best, even the trees. Towards the bottom is where one finds taller evergreens, and even a few hardwoods to give the canopy variety, but Lloyd can't and doesn't pay them any mind as he squats on the spot.

Everyone in the monastery had something to do but him, once they were done swimming, playing video games, and watching movies together. When they wanted some alone time, his friends all found things to do. Zane bakes in the kitchen; Pixal and Nya design new vehicles and weapons within the base; Kai disappears each day into a workroom to tinker, and Cole and Jay pitter away at their own hobbies. That leaves Lloyd, restless with nothing to do and confronted with the fact.

Perhaps he never noticed it, always with at least one teammate to distract him, but Lloyd doesn't do much on his own besides training or planning for the next mission. No video games or books interest him like they used to, and that's all he could think to try before heading outside, chased there by the silence and distant sense of loneliness that's sprung up in recent weeks.

Lloyd frowns at the flowers, wondering what they are. He's stuck in a mood that does well to dampen the sunlight, even turn the nodding blooms into little faces, laughing at his distress. He sticks his tongue out at them and looks up at the monastery, debating if he should go back. He could've trained, he supposes, but there's nothing new to glean from the activity.

He sighs. A gust of wind howls past, blowing Lloyd's hair every which way and making him wish he'd thought to pull it up.

It's been so peaceful that Lloyd doesn't know what to do with himself.

The situation frustrates him, so he sits next to the flowers and stews over the situation. He came outside looking for purpose, and the world seems to offer everything to him. The thing is, when Lloyd looks at the woods, he has no desire to explore it. When he sees a hill perfect for rolling, he's content to remain where he is. He doesn't know what to do with the world, so he leaves it just as he found it.

When he's returned to the monastery, he's disappointed to find that only an hour has passed since he left, meaning there's more left in the day than he can fill. With a groan, he opts to find Kai, desperate for a distraction, even if it is just watching his brother do his own thing.

Without Lloyd.

He finds Kai in a workroom, a place that opens to the courtyard but is otherwise hard to get to, with one door and a single window in the back that faces the other side of the mountain. There, Kai bends over an anvil, concentrated as he handles a strip of steel. With odd tools and hammers, he shapes what appears to Lloyd just a rod, but is probably something more, since Kai doesn't so much as look up as he calls a greeting.

"Don't get too close," he warns, the waves of heat flowing so hot through the air, Lloyd sweats just looking at Kai.

Aware of the dangers of blacksmithing, Lloyd rolls his eyes as he sits at the table before the window. For a while, he just watches as Kai taps and hammers the piece of metal before dunking the product in a tub, where a column of steam rises in its wake. Kai then sets it aside on a rack and turns with a grin.

"What's up, green bean?" he says, rolling his shoulders and wiping his forehead across his shirt. Left behind is a dark stain that makes Lloyd frown.

"Nothing much," says Lloyd, and that's been his answer for the past few weeks. As it stands, nothing much is happening at all, and Lloyd despises it. "What are you making?"

"A railing for the gates."

Lloyd's eyebrows rise in surprise, and he sneaks closer for a better look. On the table next to Kai's workspace, a pile of several unfinished parts crowds the surface, some ordered by size or structure, others haphazardly thrown together just to clear some space. Some parts appear functional, but most of them are bizarrely shaped things that Lloyd can't see a finished product in, hardly a railing. He doesn't know why the monastery needs a railing, regardless, for the walls are too high for even the ninja to get a leg over easily.

"Is there something wrong with the gates?" he asks before realizing how crass the statement might be.

Kai shrugs, grabbing a nearby water bottle and proceeding to swallow three fourths of it in two big gulps. Crunching the empty space, he says, "This is decorative. Like the mural, right? Each rod is going to represent one of us."

He points to the piece he just left, then, giving Lloyd a nudge, guides his attention to the pile. Pulling a rod free, he holds it proudly in the air, saying, "This is you. I made yours first."

Lloyd gawks at it. The rod is a delicately constructed flower, beautiful in its details, but the representation has him a little shocked.

"I'm a flower?" he says, unable to believe it. Flowers are small and delicate, neither of which describe Lloyd, thank you very much.

Kai laughs at the tone, but he explains, "You're green. Green represents life, and life makes me think of spring. Green? Spring? In spring we get flowers."

"Oh…" says Lloyd, unsure of the connection and the roundabout way of getting there. One also gets trees in spring. Big leaves and large, powerful trunks. Mighty things. "What is everyone else?"

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there," says Kai, returning to his anvil, "I made yours first. These things take time, and it's been a spell since we've had that."

Lloyd understands that much, at least. For him, it's been too much time, because something usually happens at this point. A villain emerges looking to start something; an unseen enemy with one heck of a grudge plots to ruin everything about Lloyd's life and relationships. Now, he sits and waits for the sky to fall on his head.

Lloyd eyes it out the window. The clouds roll across, blue at the bottom and whiter than white on the top. Lloyd used to imagine that if he could taste them, they'd taste sweet, like vanilla ice cream, but he doesn't daydream about those types of things, anymore.

"What brought this on?" he asks in the silence.

Kai glances up as he sets his piece to heat. "What do you mean?"

"This—" Lloyd turns, gesturing. "All of this. What caused it, and why?"

Kai gives him an odd look, half squinting. "Heck, I don't know. I was sitting on the couch one day with nothing to do, so I came down here. Let my thoughts get away from me."

"You never did that before."

Kai cocks his head.

"Before now," explains Lloyd, "when we had nothing to do, we just did nothing."

"We were always fighting before," says Kai, "Winning battles, stopping destruction, only partly succeeding. Now, we have time. There's room for hobbies. That's also kind of why I keep coming down here, too."

Lloyd doesn't respond right away, so Kai goes on.

"If I were to stop being a ninja tomorrow," Kai says, looking down at his metal and poking it with his tongs, "what would I do instead?"

Lloyd wouldn't know. Kai can certainly smith, but Lloyd can't imagine him becoming a blacksmith, doing this as a job. Can he, now that Lloyd is wondering, and will he? There is something distant about his friend's expression as Kai ponders his own question, a look that stretches far past the future Lloyd typically thinks about.

The expression niggles something in Lloyd's belly, worrying like a splinter.

"Is that…" Lloyd isn't sure how to ask this, "something you're considering?"

Kai laughs. "You mean retire? Of course not. Ninja never quit."

He speaks without any strings, but the worry ebbs slowly. Lloyd releases a breath as it goes, something he isn't sure why he was holding. It's not like Kai would leave. This is his home.

"I was born to keep people safe," continues Kai, staring at the fire's gold glow, "but as time goes on, and things start to quiet down, I want something to return to. Like my parents, your family, you know? They all settled down after a while. Not stopped, but made a life for themselves in the meantime. That's what I'm thinking about. Something I can do instead of waiting around for the next baddie to come along. Smithing helps me figure out what I want."

Waiting around, like Lloyd is doing now. His upper lip curls, and he looks back out the window, deciding then that he doesn't like this conversation. He's not used to Kai thinking so…distantly. It's true that his friend is getting older—they all are—but Lloyd somewhat expected things to stay the same, in a sense. The one constant in Lloyd's life has been his friends, defending Ninjago at his side.

He doesn't expect that to change. He doesn't expect to 'settle'.

Behind him, Kai suddenly pauses, aware that Lloyd is no longer participating in this conversation. "Why do you ask?"

Lloyd shrugs. He's starting to realize what's wrong with him, and he can't say he's pleased. He says, "I think we'll get some rain soon. Those clouds are looking dark."

They are more blue than white in the distance, or maybe Lloyd is just hoping they are. Hoping for rain, hoping for trouble.

Kai is quiet, and Lloyd doesn't have to turn to know that he's staring at him.

Kai says, "What've you been up to, Lloyd?"

_Nothing much._ The words hover and die in the back of Lloyd's throat. Nothing much, because Lloyd is thinking through his likes and dislikes, scouring his memories, but he can't think of anything he likes to do. Outside of fighting for everything Lloyd holds dear, he is nothing much.

"I don't have any," Lloyd mutters.

"What?"

"I don't have anything like that. Hobbies."

Kai sets down his tools, and all is quiet for a moment. Then, with heavy steps, he approaches Lloyd's side and leans against the wall. Lloyd won't look at him, because there's something sad in Kai's face that Lloyd both recognizes and despises with a passion.

"What do you like to do?" Kai asks.

Lloyd thinks, and he honestly doesn't know. He used to read comics, but that was ages—no, _lifetimes_ ago. He doesn't know if he's the kind of person who would enjoy those things anymore.

That makes him bite his lip hard enough to draw blood. He doesn't mean to, and he certainly has no reason to be worrying at this as much as he is. After all, it's not like he's in any danger. Aside from his father and other imminent threats that haven't promised to return but are out there anyway, there's nothing in Ninjago to make his stomach turn like it is.

No, he's just faced with the fact that he's nothing much.

"I don't know," he says.

Kai stares him down. "It's okay."

"It is not!"

"Hey," says Kai, "You know the great thing about hobbies? You can always pick something up. It's never too late to learn what you love, and we have time."

"I never—" says Lloyd, "I never noticed this before. I always had something else to think about."

"And now you can think about this," says Kai, "Play the field. Learn what you like and do what you love."

It's sound advice, but Lloyd is upset that he even has to hear it. At last, he looks at his friend, and Kai gives him a smile, crooked at the corners.

"You'll find something wonderful," he continues, "It's okay."

He says that again, unusually calm about this, which makes Lloyd think that he's overreacting. All he needs is a hobby, and a hobby isn't anything big, right? What is it but a task to pass the time until he returns to fighting? The longer Lloyd thinks, the worse he feels.

It's just a hobby, but finding what he likes is somehow a more daunting task than strategizing their next big battle. With this, he hardly knows where to begin, for it seems more than a hobby that he's missing in life. It's something else, something essential that he's lost over the years.

Lloyd swallows and sighs, willing himself to calm down for Kai. That's when he notices the hand on his shoulder and looks up at his friend again.

"It's okay," Kai says, "I'll help you."

"I don't know where to start."

Kai nods, and he has an answer for this, too. "Come here," he says, returning to his workspace, "You want to learn how to make nails?"

Lloyd looks at the anvil, then the hammer Kai holds out to him. Nails? Kai wants him to blacksmith? Lloyd, who can't hit a nail fully forged?

He can't see it, but Kai wants to help him. Help him like he always does, by offering a place to start.

Lloyd nods.

* * *

It takes him two tries before he's frustrated, but then again, his day is already ruined. He can hold a hammer, but wielding it is a skill he didn't even know existed and doesn't have.

Kai gives him the run-down of the basics of blacksmithing: heat; hold; hit. One heats the metal to mold like clay, saves body parts by holding the metal with tongs or other tools, and hits to beat their metal into shape.

The first two tasks are easy, considering Lloyd can't use his hands to touch anything. It's the hitting that gives him the most trouble, and it doesn't do well for his already bad mood. Turns out beating your frustrations out on a piece of metal just flattens it into a useless pancake, and that blacksmithing requires more than striking the metal into shape. It's about molding, about patience, about control.

Lloyd has no idea what he's doing, and his frustration breeds high as morning creeps well into late afternoon.

"I can't do this, Kai," he says halfway through hour five, when his tongs shift and the steel falls out of place, "I can't do this!"

"You can," says Kai, unusually patient as he supervises.

"Can't!" says Lloyd, "I can't hit that well."

The proof of this, outside of Lloyd's own hand, lies in the pile of failed nails, all set aside waiting to be reheated and repurposed into more successful attempts. To him, the pile is a monument of why he shouldn't be doing this at all, but Kai is shaking his head.

"You can't hit well because you're just starting out," Kai says, "That's how it works. You're already walking better than you were an hour ago, right?"

Right, Lloyd supposes, if by better, Kai means that he can hit the steel once or twice and get it to look a certain way. Better is not good, and Lloyd can't get the hang of the simple shapes. Kai made a nail in three hits tops.

"Believe me," Kai continues, patting Lloyd's shoulder before returning to his own work, "They look better than my first ones. I didn't get good until last year, and I've been smithing since birth, practically."

Lloyd snorts, wanting to feel better, but the day is shot as far as turning it around goes. He's already dealing with lack of self, and pounding nails isn't helping with it. It's hard to imagine he'll ever get good enough to make something out of this.

With a sigh, he tries hitting the steel again with his hammer, but the tongs shift as he grips it wrong. The nail falls, twisting as it does.

Staring at it, Lloyd doesn't say anything, but Kai says, "Keep at it. You've got this."

Kai is trying so hard, but Lloyd doesn't 'got' anything. If he's being honest, he's ready to settle for a mope fest until he works the courage to try something else. This is just one of many things he can do until it's time to be the Green Ninja again.

"I don't have the patience for this," he says, resigning to spend what's left of the day sulking as he drops the hammer with a clatter.

Kai glances at the tool, and Lloyd blanches at the thought that he should have been more considerate. He's so wrapped up in himself that he's forgotten good manners, and he chides himself for getting this way.

But Kai's voice is soft as he says, "I didn't either. For the longest time."

Lloyd isn't sure how to reply.

Kai looks up, and he says, "Just find something that speaks to you. Anything you want. Then tell me all about it. I'll be counting on you."

In Kai's final spring, in his final weeks, he spends his days helping Lloyd. Helping like he always does. The day is late, and sunlight now shines golden through the back window.

"What if I don't?" says Lloyd.

"You will."

Lloyd thinks. "And what if I don't want to?"

"If you're content to sulk," says Kai, grinning as Lloyd starts to smile, "I'll bully you into liking blacksmithing. Then we can put up the railing together."

Despite this experience, Lloyd likes the sound of that. The worry in his brow relaxes, and Kai spots the change even though Lloyd tries to remain indifferent.

"Okay," Lloyd laments, looking at his pile of failed nails, all twisted and curled into a depressing heap, "but only if I don't find another hobby, first."

"Alright, Lloyd."

Kai pulls his latest piece from the bucket of water, the one he was working on before and continued to mess with while Lloyd pounded his failures. It's a beautifully sculpted wave mounted around a rod, just like Lloyd's flower, but taller.

"Nya," Kai states, setting it against a hook to cool.

Though Lloyd doesn't appreciate the height difference, he does think it beautiful. Lloyd marvels the rod from across the room before turning to the rest of the pieces Kai has finished so far. Most of it is structurally based, and Lloyd's flower sticks out among the rest.

Taking it in hand, he slides it out from the rest of the pieces, admiring the detail in the petals and leaves. He still doesn't see himself in it, but it is a work of art.

"What kind of flower is this?" he asks, wondering where Kai found the inspiration.

"Not sure," replies Kai, "They always pop up in spring. Every year, bright and early."

The next day, Lloyd enters a library and checks out a book on wildflowers.

* * *

**Thank you for reading! Updates will be infrequent.**


	2. Chapter 2

His book of wildflowers is a big, green thing that smells about as old as his uncle Wu looks, and Lloyd gets a good whiff of it when he's slouched over Kai's worktable, trying to match the metal flower with any of the hundreds profiled in the book. He figures he must be in Kai's way, because it's only ten minutes of obliviously flipping through page after page before Kai tells him to go outside.

"We're surrounded by wilderness," says he, "You'll have better luck finding it out there."

When Lloyd looks back, Kai hasn't got a lot done and isn't even sweaty yet. He's also got his hands on his hips.

He closes the book with a huff. "At least tell me what color it is."

Kai smirks, then shakes his head, a knowing look in his eye that's frustrating at worst and cheeky at best. Lloyd sticks his tongue in retort and receives a cross-eyed, frog face in return. Though tempted to continue the battle with a good-natured belch, he heeds his brother, figuring what's the harm, and heads outside.

A heavy tome, he tucks the book close to his chest as he hikes the mountains in the days afterward. Though miffed that Kai sent him out, he learns to be thankful for it as time passes. The hours are faster now that Lloyd spends them actively, so fast that he's begun waking up at the crack of dawn to make the most of the day.

Though he'd only intended to find Kai's flower and be done with it, once he starts looking, he sees flowers everywhere. They grow in the cracks at the top of the mountain, in the underbrush towards the bottom, deep in the woods between the valleys. They're all different kinds, as well, from big blooms on thick stems to dainty things shorter than his thumb.

Learning the names of the flowers he sees starts as an accident but grows to intention the longer he does it. He can't describe the feeling he gets during his hunts other than simple interest, and it's been a long time since he's felt something like that. He checked the book out for a month, and now that he's seeing flowers in places he didn't before, he's curious to learn every page.

This proves a more difficult task than meets the eye once he's out searching. When Lloyd finds a flower, most of his time is spent flipping through the yellowed pages, trying to find the right picture and name to match it to. When he does find it, only ten to fifteen minutes later if he's lucky, he reaches to pluck one of the flowers from its roots and tucks it away to bring inside when he's finished.

The end of the day is always his favorite part of his new…task. He's not sure if it counts as a hobby, but it's a start. One he's enjoying, too. He greets Kai in the workroom with a smile, a real one, as he presents his friend all his latest finds.

The afternoon is bright one day as Lloyd shows off his work, three new flowers in all.

"This is _erythronium_," says Lloyd, butchering the name as he holds up a small, nodding yellow flower, "also known as the dogtooth violet."

Kai snorts. "Could've just said so."

"The science names are just as important," says Lloyd, because it's true. He holds up his next flower, "This is _mayan-maianthemum—_" he pauses to think, then gives up altogether, "This is false lily of the valley."

This specimen is a long line of spidery white blooms bent like bells from the stem. Lloyd is particularly proud of this flower simply because it was so hard to find. It lurked deep in the woods along three boulders that he might just have enjoyed climbing. It took some work to pull the stalk free, and said stalk is probably the reason for the red rash circling the curve of his index finger and thumb. The book said the flower could be a skin irritant to some, and Lloyd has the kind of luck to be a part of that category.

He doesn't mind as much as he should. In fact, he's feeling pretty good about himself, like he accomplished something important in retrieving this flower.

He guesses that he did. He promised Kai that he'd tell him all about his hobby.

Kai likes this flower. He stops his work on the railing and walks over for a closer look, and Lloyd lets him take it in hand. "False?" he questions, "Like, there's a real one?"

"A different kind," says Lloyd, "I guess they look similar."

"What's a valley flower doing in the mountains?"

Lloyd shrugs. "Just because the name is some way doesn't mean it has to be that way," he says, "Just like the dogtooth violet. The flower isn't violet at all!" after another moment of thinking, he adds, "Names are just suggestions, anyway."

Kai snorts and smiles at the flower, turning it over and admiring the little blooms.

Watching him, Lloyd says, "I wish there was a way to keep them fresh longer. I place them in water, but they're all wilted the next day."

Lloyd is complaining for the sake of it, but somehow, Kai has an answer for this, too.

"You could try pressing them," he says, "They won't be fresh, but they'll be preserved, so you can look at them whenever you want."

"Really?" Lloyd says.

"Sure, just like museums or something." Kai hands him back the flower, frowning at the rash but thankfully not commenting on it. "There's even clubs for these sorts of things. Probably full of little old ladies."

He's not making fun so much as he's taking an uneducated guess, which Lloyd appreciates as he asks, "How do I do that?"

Kai shakes his head, returning to his railing. "Ask around the monastery. I don't know enough about it."

Lloyd doesn't know about that. Kai knows enough to point Lloyd in the right direction. He's gotten pretty good at that, in his own, knucklehead kind of way.

* * *

For some reason, Lloyd expected Zane to be the one to tell him the ins and outs of pressing flowers, but Cole is the only one who's had any experience with it. He tells Lloyd that his mother used to do it, and there are albums with proof.

Cole has them laid out on the floor next to his bed, several pages worth of pansies and zinnias that Cole says used to grow in plots behind his house. That would make the flowers several years old at least, but the ones pinned on the page, all arranged in patterns and bundles, are delightfully colorful and just about some of the prettiest works of art Lloyd has ever seen. He could see why little old ladies would form clubs around it.

"Pressing is kind of like mummifying the flower," explains Cole, "It dries them out and preserves their shape and color."

"I figured as much," says Lloyd, feeling better than he has in ages.

"What you'll need is a press," says Cole, "You could use a big book, but wooden presses save you pages."

Lloyd doesn't understand where pages would come into play, but he listens on as Cole crafts a plan to build Lloyd his own press, a fortunately simple task. An hour later finds them in the workroom, borrowed from Kai as they prepare long blocks of wood.

Cole is going to do the cutting, and Lloyd is going to do the rest: drilling holes in the corners and simply screwing it together. As Cole slides a board under the path of the power saw, Lloyd watches in excitement, pleased with his new hobby and unable to remember why he was so hesitant in the first place.

Everything has turned up since he's started, like some hollow part of him is now fulfilled, gifted with a sense of purpose that is all Lloyd's. Not Ninjago's, not the First Spinjitzu Master's, not destiny's. Just Lloyd.

Lloyd can't wait to try out the press. He only has one find today from his morning hunt, shortened to make room for building the press. It's a small, red flower that he holds in hand as he waits for Cole to set up, twirling it back and forth between his fingers. It was found on a slope behind the monastery, a burst of life along a slate of gray.

"I still haven't found Kai's flower," he says, watching the red spin.

"What flower?" says Cole as he slides on a pair of safety glasses and shifts the first board into place.

Lloyd points to Kai's railing, which looks more like a family as Kai finishes more of the main, decorative rods. So far, he's since finished Cole's and Zane's, as well as other, more plain looking pieces. He hasn't assembled much yet, but Lloyd knows it's going to be beautiful. He almost wishes he was still trying to smith, just so he can see it come together.

"On our fence. He says the flower represents spring, and spring is me," Lloyd says, shaking his head almost in embarrassment. "He says he sees it every year, but I haven't found it yet."

"How do you represent spring?"

Before Lloyd can reply, Cole turns on the cutter and lowers it with a squeal. Tiny chips of wood start flying, and Lloyd looks away while he waits for Cole to finish his first cut.

"He says it represents life. Green, see?"

"I guess. Why a flower, though?"

Cole turns the board and slides the unwanted piece off the table, which Lloyd takes and adds to the growing pile of junk in the corner. The screeching continues as Cole makes his next cut.

"I don't understand it myself," Lloyd says, raising his voice to be heard over the dying sound, "My powers are more bright than lively."

"I wouldn't say that," Cole concedes, brow furrowed in thought, "Maybe it'll make sense when you find the flower."

Maybe so. Cole turns the cutter on again, and Lloyd doesn't say any more about it.

* * *

The first flowers he tries pressing are brown when he takes the top board off two weeks after. Paper thin, they fall apart in Lloyd's clumsy fingers as he peels them away. The disappointment at the sight hits him like an unexpected sock to the stomach, and there's a frown on Lloyd's face as he drops the blooms out the window, unsure of what he did wrong.

"Maybe it's the water?"

Lloyd keeps his press in the workroom, for another excuse to spend time there, not that he needs one. Lloyd prefers the company, if he's being honest. A hobby doesn't exactly chase loneliness away; it just gives him something else to share.

It also helps on days like today.

"I can't water them while they're in the press," Lloyd sulks, irritable with his failure and trying to decide what to do with the flowers he's found today.

"No duh," Kai snorts, "I'm saying maybe they're too wet going in."

"They're supposed to be fresh," says Lloyd, thinking, "That's why I keep them in water."

"You could still let them dry off a little before pressing them," says Kai, "Let them sit out for a while first. Then see what happens."

Lloyd hums in reply as he thinks the statement over. It's a surprisingly sensible suggestion, certainly easier to try than giving up altogether. He won't admit as much out loud, though.

"I would've thought of that," he replies, gathering his newest flowers and eyeing the dewdrops still sparkling within the petals—upon the pistils, he's learned. "I would've thought of that."

"Sure," says Kai.

He's interrupted by a loud clatter, and Kai mutters a curse word. Lloyd glances up, and Kai is now standing back from his station, hands behind his head. Before him lies the rod, glowing red and warped. He's finished Pixal's rod and even made one for Wu, but Jay's is giving him trouble as he struggles to construct the design.

Kai has heated and reheated it several times, and while each round is better than the last, work has been slow recently.

Lloyd watches Kai's face, then offers the best piece of advice he knows, "Keep at it. You've got this."

"Thank you, Lloyd." Kai sighs.

He doesn't pick up his hammer for a while, and Lloyd turns back to his press, glancing out the window. He wonders where the rotted flowers landed. As thin as they'd become, one soft breeze could've carried them all the way to the bottom of the mountain.

* * *

The next day, Lloyd is up at the crack of dawn, smiling at the sunshine and hopeful to try out Kai's suggestion. It's a new day, and for once, Lloyd doesn't mind the idea of 'keeping at it' as he rushes for his jacket.

Spring makes for cold and wet mornings in the mountains, and Lloyd puts on his best boots before grabbing his book and racing out the door.

He's in the hallway when he barrels straight into Kai, who wobbles so hard that he grabs Lloyd's shoulders for balance. Lloyd is halfway to an apology before he notices his friend is decked in his full ninja gear.

He freezes on the spot, nearly dropping his book. "What's happened?" he asks after a brief second where he chokes on the shock. His heart is already sinking, a stone in his chest.

Kai holds up his hands. "Pixal wired in a call from the city," he says, voice low, "There's been a break in at Borg."

Lloyd looks at Kai's gear and thinks of the sky, wondering if this is the fall he's been waiting for. "Oh."

It takes him a moment to turn, but Kai catches him by the elbow.

"Don't worry," he says, "Cole and I are going to take care of it. It's minor."

"If it's minor, they wouldn't call _us_," says Lloyd, tugging against Kai's grip.

"Just Cole and I this time, kiddo," Kai says, "Trust me, this isn't worth the whole team. We're going to make sure it's nothing big."

Lloyd stops tugging against Kai's grip, but only a second. He's hesitant to leave it at that, but he's surprised to find himself just as reluctant to get into his gi. For the first time in ages, he's looking at the sunshine instead of the clouds, and Lloyd isn't so ready to leave this nice sense of peace so soon after he came to obtain it.

"Are you sure?" he asks, guilty for wanting to stay and wondering what could've changed in the past few weeks. Can a hobby really accomplish so much in that time?

Kai nods. "If it were serious, we would've woken you. Master Wu already knows."

Lloyd stares at him a while longer, debating himself, and Kai smiles. Everything is fine, it assures him, but Lloyd feels weird about this, still.

Kai points to his book, saying, "I'll be back in time to hear your finds. Get something good today, okay?"

Lloyd looks at his book, then pushes aside his inhibitions. "Okay," he says, "Just be safe."

"Pshhh," Kai hems, shoving Lloyd out of the way by the head, "When am I not safe?"

Lloyd rolls his eyes so hard they hurt, but he's smiling. "Is there a limit to how many things I can list?"

"You're one to talk, green bean," says Kai, sliding his katana over his back as he nears the door. Giving Lloyd one last grin, he says, "Tell me all about it when I get back."

Cole calls from outside, and Kai walks out the door.

* * *

**Thank you kindly for reading and reviewing! Have a wonderful day!**


	3. Chapter 3

**TW Character Death: if death or the subject of it is triggering for you, please feel free to leave. Thank you for dropping by, and I hope you have a lovely day.**

* * *

One of Lloyd's favorite memories is the day Kai rescued him from the temple of fire. It is not necessarily a good memory, given the circumstances of his situation, and Lloyd was terrified the entire time. He doesn't like to admit it, but in a land as large as Ninjago, he is small. Vertically challenged, in some ways, and just plain small in others. With no clear future, he wondered if he was doomed to die in that volcano: without his father; without his friends.

But Kai was there, and Kai has been there for him ever since. Once the decision was made, that was all it took.

Lloyd remembers an orange sky and pink clouds, warped and waving behind a haze of white-hot energy. It flowed around them as Kai flew, literally flew through the air, sailing like an ember from a dying flame.

Kai's arms were shaking with raw power, but somehow Lloyd knew Kai wasn't going to drop him. Maybe it was the way he held onto Lloyd, or just the steadfast look of determination on Kai's face, but Lloyd knew that Kai wasn't going to let go. Not until Lloyd was safe.

Lloyd likes that memory. Everything their friendship is built on was born from it.

He will think of it sometimes, usually when Kai does something Lloyd doesn't quite know how to say thank you for, or on days where he wonders what could have been. He thinks of it today, as he returns to the monastery from his flower hunt.

He's found something in pressing flowers that he wouldn't have known existed had Kai not sent him outside, so he's pleased and proud to be carrying home an entire string of a jasmine vine he pulled from the woods. The vine does not lend well to pressing, but the cuts and scrapes he obtained in his search are worth it just to show off the flower to his friends.

He is halfway up the monastery's steps when he notices something is wrong. He glances up offhand to see Pixal's silver hair flashing under the sun as she races out the gates. Until then, it is an otherwise beautiful day.

She runs so fast over the steps, she practically flies down to meet him, an urgency about her that Lloyd doesn't understand even when she reaches him.

"Lloyd!" she exclaims, taking his hand and squeezing it uncomfortably tight, "Where have you been? We've been looking for you!"

"Out?" questions Lloyd, confused and alarmed at the look on her face, "What's going on?"

She's staring at him in a way that chills him down to his marrow, and it is such a strong expression for her face that Lloyd looks away, glancing back up the steps to see Wu and Zane waiting for them at the gates. They look upon the pair with a similarly twisted expression, all furrowed brows and downturned mouths.

"Lloyd," Pixal repeats, never one to mince words but hesitating nonetheless, "There has been an accident—in the city—I've just returned myself."

_Accident?_ Lloyd's stomach bottoms out and his heart crawls into his throat. "Is it bad?"

Pixal's eyes are glittering—Lloyd didn't know they could do that. "Come here," she says, "We must explain."

It is bad, thinks Lloyd. It must be. He tugs his hand from her grip and races up the steps, a million thoughts racing through his head. His team is accident prone by nature, especially in recent years, but they have always pulled through.

Wu reaches for him as Lloyd enters the courtyard, but he steps away, looking around. It is empty, quiet.

"What's going on?" he demands, words stumbling over each other as he glances about, "Where is everyone?"

He looks at Zane and is met with an oddly bug-eyed stare for a normally composed individual.

"In the city," says Zane, shifting as Pixal steps towards him, "We stayed for you."

"Why?" What's wrong?" Lloyd's thoughts are racing too fast to comprehend past fleeting images of hospitals and falling off things and friends in distress. Accidents, lots of accidents.

Wu's hand falls on his shoulder with an unusual weight as he turns Lloyd towards him. "There was a break in at Borg this morning, Lloyd. We'd reason to suspect those involved were working for the Mechanic, so I sent Kai and Cole to lend a hand to police."

Lloyd nods, aware of as much but suddenly afraid to say so. He looks behind him in time to see Zane avert his gaze. Pixal keeps staring at him.

"And something went wrong?" Lloyd guesses, turning to see Wu watching him with something troubling in his gaze.

Something sad.

Wu inhales. "Cole was hard to understand. He called the base earlier saying that a bomb went off in one of the lower laboratories. Cole went after the men, and Kai stayed to help those stuck in the building."

Wu stops to swallow, a very poor time to do so. Lloyd's ears are ringing, and he isn't sure if his heart is beating anymore, just stuck in anticipation.

"And?"

"Lloyd," starts Wu, "Kai is dead."

In the brief pause it takes for the words to fall over him, Lloyd feels like he's been punched in the face. His vision dizzies, slanting sideways, and his nose has this upwards wind about it from the shock. That said, Wu's words don't exactly sink in. They feel fake, like cardboard or paper, and Wu doesn't say anything else, just watching him.

Then something strange happens. A noise fills the air, a reedy kind of huffing, and everyone starts looking at him funny. It's laughter, Lloyd realizes—he's laughing. How is that possible?

"No, he's not," says Lloyd, because it can't be, "Not Kai."

"Lloyd." Pixal's head tilts sideways.

Lloyd glances down, wanting to press his palms over his ears so he doesn't hear any more of it. It's impossible, thinks he. Lloyd saw Kai this morning. He can't be dead. Not now, not after everything.

"Not him," says Lloyd, "Kai's too strong for that. What happened?"

"He went in ahead of the rescue team," says Wu, rubbing circles on Lloyd's shoulder even as Lloyd tries shaking it away, "Parts of the building were burning—"

"Kai can handle fire."

Kai can. Lloyd knows this. He _knows._

"The room he entered was falling apart," says Wu, careful and quiet, "They say he hit his head."

They? Who is 'they', and what would they possibly know about being a ninja? Lloyd doesn't believe it. They must have made a mistake; Kai must have gone to another realm, or maybe he had a hard fall that convinced everyone that he was dead. He will get up again, and then he'll walk in through the monastery's doors.

"Where is he?" Lloyd asks again, "Where's Nya?"

Lloyd's hands are shaking, and he isn't sure why. He isn't panicking, but some emotion is thrumming through his veins, making his ears pound.

"I sent the rest of the team in after Cole contacted us," says Wu.

"We came back for you," Zane butts in, "Because—so we could get you. So you could see him, if you want to."

See him? Kai? Of course Lloyd wants to see him. Lloyd wants to see him walk through the gates with the rest of the team trailing behind him, each laughing over this cruel, cruel joke. Lloyd wants this hard enough that he doesn't think he would even be mad.

No, he would laugh.

"Lloyd?" says Pixal. They keep saying his name, like that one word somehow tells him everything he needs to know.

But Lloyd doesn't get it. There is a disconnect in his mind, puzzle pieces that he refuses to put together.

A cloud passes over the sun, and Lloyd finds it impossible to say anything else. His voice dies in his throat, and he bows his head when it gets too heavy to keep up anymore. He looks down at the stone and sees his book, then the jasmine.

He must have dropped them, but he cannot recall letting go.

There are hands now on his shoulders, but Lloyd doesn't recognize them, suddenly a stranger in his own skin. He feels small, like he's ten again, all alone.

He keeps staring at his book, scared of what will happen when he looks away.

* * *

The next time Lloyd sees Kai is the last time, but Lloyd doesn't see him at first. First, he sees Cole sitting outside a door that Zane and Pixal enter in ahead of him. Kai was not the only casualty of the day, but he is the only one Lloyd cares about, a fact that has shame curdling in his gut at the sight of the damage.

The reasons for the break in were at the time unknown, as were the number of people involved. All Lloyd knows is that the explosion was one part of a plan that left four dead and several technological parts missing from Borg's workshops and labs.

Lloyd can't bring himself to care why, especially after they arrive at the hospital, where crowds of people gather in the front. The buzzing of the crowd falls to an eerie silence as Lloyd walks in, and the atmosphere follows like a cloud as they are led to the rest of the team.

They turn a corner, and that's when Lloyd sees Cole, slouched on the floor outside a door. The faint sound of sobbing echoes from the room, so Lloyd ducks his head past as he approaches his friend.

Cole is curled in on himself like a turtle, with his shoulders up and his chin hanging down. When he looks at Lloyd, his face is pinched but otherwise dry. For a second, neither of them say anything, and Lloyd guesses he'll have to be the one that speaks first.

"Is—" his voice cracks against his will, "Is he in there?"

Cole nods once.

There is a stone in his throat the next time Lloyd swallows, and it's hard to speak around as he says, "Is—was it bad?"

Cole looks at his hands, folded in front of him. "I wasn't there. By the time I got back, he was being wheeled into the ambulance."

"Dead?"

"No."

"So…" says Lloyd, "He died here?"

Cole nods again, movements jerky.

Lloyd isn't sure what to do with this fact. His hands squeeze in and out of fists, the thought turning over in his mind. Kai died here. Lloyd doesn't believe it.

"Well," he eventually says, "Did you catch them? The guys that did this?"

Cole shakes his head this time, and the movement tremors down his body, all the way to his feet.

When Lloyd enters the room, he spots Kai's feet, two humps under a white sheet. Kai himself is hidden behind Zane and Pixal, huddled together at the top of the gurney. Nya lies opposite with her head on the mattress, arms curled into her hair, and Jay stands behind her, crying.

From the way he stares, he looks as though he expects Kai to sit right up.

Lloyd hopes as much, despite everything. He skirts the edge of the room as he tries to get a look at Kai's face.

It's scrubbed surprisingly clean, and Kai looks no worse than he has in the past after a rough fight. There is even a band aid on his forehead, covering a cut that reaches too far down his head. This and the almost sleep-mussed style of his hair gives him the air of rest, like he really could sit up if he wanted to.

Lloyd knows better, however. When Kai sleeps, he's a mess. His limbs tangle and sprawl off the bed, and his mouth hangs open so that a sizeable puddle of drool soaks into the pillow by morning.

Everything about what he sees is the worst thing Lloyd has ever seen, so he retreats to the door. The room is silent, too silent.

Wu finds him there a few minutes later, pressed against the wall with a little more force than the posture calls. Lloyd watches his friends from afar, watches Kai's face go in and out of his line of sight as Zane and Pixal pass in front of it.

They are trying to talk to Nya, but Nya has yet to lift her head, cursed with the same silence that followed Lloyd inside. Lloyd wants to talk to her, but he keeps staring at Kai, trying to decide if it really is his friend. The longer Lloyd looks, the more Kai looks like someone else, someone who is a far cry from the person who left the monastery that morning.

"Do you want to see him?" asks Wu, jostling Lloyd from his thoughts.

Lloyd blinks as Zane steps back, blocking Kai's face from view again. "I see him."

Wu looks at the bed, and Lloyd knows what he means. Lloyd doesn't know if he could approach the bed if he tried.

Lloyd just shakes his head. "I can't."

"It's okay," says Wu.

Lloyd stays by the door until they leave, eyeing the humps under the sheet that are Kai's feet, and that is the last of Kai that Lloyd ever sees.

Even so, weeks later finds him staring at the monastery's doors.

* * *

**Thank you so much for reading.**


	4. Chapter 4

**I changed the rating because this fic will get into some heavy stuff going forward.**

* * *

His book of wildflowers appears at his bedside three days later, and Lloyd has no clue how it got there. As far as he knows, the book remained in the courtyard after he dropped it, unnoticed as everyone returned from the city. He guesses Wu brought it in, since no one else seems in any shape to function. Past the change in scenery, Lloyd doesn't give it any more thought.

Frankly, he isn't sure if he can spare it. Something feels wrong with his head. His mind buzzes, and the world around him exists in a haze of gray, a perpetual cloud over the sun that makes everything look dim. Even the sky has changed since the day Kai left. Lloyd eyes it from the workroom window, trying to figure out what the problem is. Some days, it looks like paper, a page in a storybook he can reach up to and turn. Other days, it is a washed out puddle, shallow and gray.

All in all, it feels wrong, and so does the rest of the world in turn. The days after Kai dies might be weeks in disguise, but Lloyd doesn't care. In the workroom, everything looks the same, so that is where he spends most of his time.

It is difficult to be anywhere else in the monastery, due both to Kai's absence and the choking, heavy atmosphere he left behind. The ninja have become strangers in their behavior, in some ways that Lloyd recognizes, but others not so much. Those other ways are what troubles Lloyd the most.

Cole has gone quiet, his words few and far in between. Lloyd didn't ask him how he was after seeing Kai wheeled away, and Cole doesn't talk about it. Lloyd wouldn't know what to say, regardless, not anything that he hasn't said before, and those words didn't work in the past and won't work now.

So Cole is alone in his silence.

Jay still cries, the hiccup-y sort that makes Lloyd feel awful for wanting to leave the room when he hears it, but once Jay is finished, his expression doesn't change for days at a time. Lloyd is still trying to decide which state is worse.

Zane puzzles Lloyd. He carries on with life under the illusion of normal, taking over the household chores after they ceased to be done. He works all hours of the day, every day, working like if he stops, he'll fall apart. His face remains calm and still, and it is only the relentlessness of his task that clues Lloyd in that something is not right behind that mask of pensiveness.

He doesn't even see Pixal anymore.

Lloyd is reminded—eerily, worryingly so—of the weeks following Zane's death. With so much time spent broken in such a way, the team had held themselves together with strings, until they fell away one by one.

That makes it Lloyd's job to keep it from happening again. He wouldn't make it through a change like that a second time, and he's barely holding up as it is. As it stands, he doesn't know what is wrong with him. He hasn't yet cried over Kai, though he rarely cries anyway. He knows that he should, because Kai's absence hurts like a gaping hole in his chest, like fire and lightning and getting beaten to the point that it is easier to lie down instead of trying to get up. All the same, he does not cry, for he doesn't feel the need to.

He is certain he can. There is a burn in his chest that throbs and waves around with his heartbeat, but summoning the will to cry seems more like a challenge with each passing day. Something must be wrong with him, though he debates himself until an afternoon altercation with Nya, on the day that Nya finally leaves her room.

Lloyd hasn't seen her much until this point. She's spent most of her time in her room, closing herself off and refusing to see anyone. When she did emerge, she was angry.

Lloyd sits in the hallway on that lonely afternoon, flipping through his book of wildflowers and passing glances at the monastery's doors when Nya appears at the end of the hall. The change in her has been the most drastic, only because Lloyd hardly recognizes her.

She looms more than stands beneath the archway, watching him like a hawk. Lloyd stares back without greeting, unable to believe his eyes. He hadn't realized how long her hair had gotten in the past year, so used to seeing it put up during the day. Now it hangs in strings around her face, which is drawn long and red.

She looks bad. Lloyd swallows as she approaches, unsure of what to make of her. This is something he's never seen before.

Her eyes are empty and cold when she gazes down at him, the darkness within seeming to stretch on forever. Lloyd feels hollow just looking at her, so much that he can't gather the will to speak. What can he say to someone who looks like that?

The quiet stretches painfully long, until Nya finally croaks, "Are you alright?"

Lloyd blinks. That isn't what he was expecting, and while there are many long and winding answers to the question, the gist of it is a simple _no._

He shrugs in reply, like that says it all.

Nya's face twitches, half a frown, then not. That wasn't the answer she was expecting, either.

She steps closer and turns, peering into his book. Lloyd's hand twitches, the urge to shut the book flaring with embarrassment at being caught looking at it. He relaxes after a second, though, unsure of why he is embarrassed at all.

"Are you still hunting flowers?" Nya asks, her tone light, but in an odd way that sends Lloyd's senses on high alert.

He turns his eyes to his book. He hadn't been reading it, just looking. "No."

"Good," says Nya.

Lloyd frowns. Good?

"It's been quiet here, huh?" Nya continues, voice shaking, "I hate to say it, but I still expect to hear him bustling around. Slamming cabinets, starting arguments, and all that."

Lloyd understands that much. He almost nods, but instead he looks at the doors again.

Yes, he understands.

"He was always so loud," says Nya, looking elsewhere too, though her gaze stretches far past the doors, "Of course, everyone is around here."

Not so much these days, and Lloyd still can't bring himself to respond. He doesn't know what to say to Nya, and he's sure there is something wrong with him, now. A good leader would know what to say, what to do.

"He probably wouldn't want us to mourn," says Nya, "Not too long, anyway. He wouldn't want us to be sad."

She looks at him as she says this, something pointed in her stare, searching.

Would Kai? Lloyd doesn't know. If Lloyd were the one dead, he certainly wouldn't want his team to look like this. He wouldn't want Kai and Nya to look like the two of them now. But what would Kai want? Lloyd can't speak for Kai. No one can, not anymore.

He swallows at the thought and turns a page in his book, staring at the painted flowers. The one on the page is red, so he turns again to stare at a yellow flower, entirely different.

"Why are you reading that book?" Nya suddenly asks.

Her tone dips down, making Lloyd's shoulders rise. "I don't—I don't know."

"Why?"

He shuts his book and looks at her, unsure of what he is seeing. There is a darkness about her that Lloyd doesn't like one bit.

He can't think of an answer, so he replies, "Why are you asking me this?"

"I want to know," says Nya, staring down with steel in her eyes, "Are you alright?"

Lloyd chews his lip and draws it into a line. "I'm fine."

Nya jerks backwards at a speed that startles Lloyd, making him jump. "Fine?" she says, "How can you be fine?"

Her voice rings through the air, much louder than it was before, and Lloyd flounders, blindsided.

"I—what?" he says.

"What's the matter with you?" Nya demands, "Kai is dead, and you can't even shed a tear!"

She turns on her heel and marches from the hall before Lloyd can reply, not that he can. Her words hit with a shock that has him shaking, for they sting. They sting worse than most things he's heard before, and that has to be the worst thing he's ever thought about Nya.

The anger he glimpses that afternoon is a wild, ferocious beast that Nya takes with her to what's left of their team. It is unlike anything Lloyd has seen before, something scary. Every other time they've lost, Nya buried her grief by throwing herself into new projects or missions, something that gives her a reason to go on each day. Now, she drowns her sorrow in bouts of anger that flare up in nasty fits, and they see a lot of it over the next few days.

She wanders the monastery like a ghost, a mournsome specter that doesn't rest. Lloyd is sure he hears her moving through the night, and he often finds her sitting alone at a table or chair, dark circles under her eyes. The words she hurls around her are harsh and biting, and Lloyd isn't sure if he hates them more for what they've made Nya out to in his head or for the fact that they haunt him for days afterward.

He almost wishes that she had stayed in her room, another thought that eats him alive with guilt. It is tough to see her like this, and to feel so useless in the face of it. Nya is angry at the world around her, and she doesn't bury it this time around.

She's angry at Jay, for being so unresponsive. She's angry at Zane, who hasn't the decency to tear the world down in his grief instead of keeping it in order. She is angry at Cole, who has nothing to say for himself.

To escape her and everyone else, Lloyd keeps himself locked in the workroom, but he can't stay there all the time. Something about the silence always chases him back out, so he is in the hallway again on the day that Nya hits Cole.

He doesn't have his book this time, instead sitting cross-legged on the floor as he stares at the door, waiting for it to open, perhaps. He hears Nya in the other room, following Cole as he walks a path to the courtyard.

His head is down, but his chin is set forward as he appears in the hall. Lloyd guesses that he is going to punch out his grief on an unsuspecting boxing bag. Nya trails after him, worked up to the point of tears, a sight that has Lloyd standing to go.

"Why didn't you wake us? You let those murderers get away!" she wails, making Lloyd freeze and Cole falter, "Why didn't you take us with you?"

Cole is quiet, eyes on the floor. It could have been an expression of shame, even guilt, but it isn't enough for Nya.

"Why didn't you wake us?" she repeats, breaking, "How could you do this to me?"

Then she hits him, and the world shifts.

Lloyd doesn't think she means to do it. She talks as much with her hands as she does her voice, and the further into her spiel she'd gone, the wilder her gestures became. She hits Cole across the back, not enough to hurt him in any way, but the shock is there all the same.

He turns, and in the second that Nya is frozen in horror of what she just did, he grabs her by the shoulders—not to hurt her, but just to hold her in place.

A second of silence rings past, then Nya starts crying. It isn't a simple cry, it is a big sob that shakes her entire frame, and she holds her hands to her face. Whether the remorse is over what she did or what she lost, Lloyd doesn't know. He's crippled with inaction, caught under Cole's stare when his friend looks over in distress.

Lloyd doesn't know what to say, not to either of them. He doesn't recognize anything about Nya, and he wonders if maybe she somehow isn't her. Maybe that wasn't Kai who died, and this isn't Nya at all. Maybe this is someone else entirely.

But it does sound like Nya, and her sobs draw the rest of the team, with Zane peeking around the corner and Jay appearing from the other room.

The monastery's doors slide open. Lloyd whips around at the sound, but it is only Wu, gazing sadly over his students.

A heartbeat passes, and he says, "My pupils, we need to talk."

His voice is soft but firm, and it is the last straw in everything that is _this_ situation. An ugly fight or flight response triggers in Lloyd's gut, worse than even Nya's words. Lloyd doesn't want to talk, especially after what he just witnessed.

He bolts from the spot without looking back, counting on Nya to be enough of a distraction for everyone to leave him alone. That is all he wants—all he needs, just until he can figure things out. He runs into the workroom, shutting the door and falling uneasily into his spot by the window.

The flower press lies before him on the table. The flowers he placed on the afternoon of his first failure—Kai's last afternoon, his head reminds him with a shot of pain that spikes in his chest—lie inside, but Lloyd is too nervous to open the press and look at them.

Nervous, but maybe he is more than that. Nya scares him, in behavior and words alike.

Lloyd still isn't crying.

He tries to. He tries capturing the burn in his chest and making his eyes sting, but his vision remains clear as he looks in front of him. He thinks back to the morning, remembering Kai. He watched his friend walk out the door, and Lloyd still stares at it.

Impossible as it is, he still expects Kai to walk back in.

* * *

**Thank you so much for reading and for leaving such kind reviews on the previous chapters. I wish you all the best.**


	5. Chapter 5

An hour later, Lloyd hasn't moved. He stares at the press and debates himself, wanting to see if Kai's tip worked but not sure what he will do if it didn't. With no one behind him to tell him if it will be okay, it takes eternity to make a decision he wouldn't have given a second thought if he were acting normally.

Like he should be.

But Lloyd isn't, and he feels entirely unlike himself when he finally leans forward to unscrew the press. He wants to see his flowers.

At that time, a knock sounds on the door before Wu enters the room. "Lloyd?" he greets, voice stuffy like he's exhausted.

Lloyd fiddles with the screws, turning them up and out. It requires all his concentration, which he hopes his uncle understands when he doesn't respond. It would be better if Wu just let him be.

Wu doesn't take the hint, journeying to the spot Kai stood in all those weeks ago and leaning against the wall to watch Lloyd's task. Lloyd glances sideways, on edge, but continues his work. Between Wu and Nya, he is starting to feel like a bug under a microscope, and he wonders what they are looking for.

He wonders what even became of Nya. The monastery fell back into its terrible silence not too long ago, and Lloyd has never been more aware of it.

"Lloyd," Wu repeats, "You didn't stay with us in the other room."

Lloyd places the screws carefully against the table, trying not to let them roll but catching them when they do anyway. This table is missing a caster, the reason it is on this side of the room at all.

"We need to talk," says Wu.

Lloyd looks up once, not quite making it to his uncle's eyes before going back to his press. He has two more screws and sets to work, heart in his throat. By _we,_ thinks Lloyd, Wu means _you._

He shakes his head. He knows he hasn't said much about Kai, but he honestly doesn't know what to say.

So he replies, "What's there to talk about?"

His throat burns as he speaks, something that has been happening for a while. He blinks and watches the sky. It has only been gray since that beautiful morning.

"You've been bottling this up," says Wu, surprising Lloyd in cutting right to the chase, "It isn't healthy. We need to talk."

He says that again, like two times the charm will procure subjects from Lloyd's head. Like Lloyd will open his heart and sob everything out on his uncle's shoulder, like everything will be alright afterwards. Lloyd's lip curls at the thought.

There is nothing to talk about. Lloyd simply can't think of anything.

Does he tell his uncle that he saw Kai as he left, that Lloyd stayed behind for his own reasons, outside of the team? Does he tell Wu that he wishes he had gone with Kai, woken the rest of the team, did something that might have changed the outcome of that day?

Does he say that this wish eats him up inside as he thinks of it over and over again? Does he say that despite all this, he still expects to see Kai again?

Can he say any of that and have his uncle understand?

Call it lack of faith, but Lloyd doesn't think Wu will. He keeps his thoughts to himself, like he always does, and turns to look at the door.

He can imagine it now, Kai walking right in.

He'll smile bright and crooked at Lloyd, and he'll say, _Hey there, green bean! Did you miss me?_

_There was some kind of mistake,_ Kai will explain, _That was someone else's feet you saw on the bed. A bump on the head can't kill me! My hair would've absorbed most of the impact._

He'll grin at Lloyd as he says this, and Lloyd will laugh.

A ghost of a smile almost graces his face before Wu's voice chases the daydream from his thoughts.

"Lloyd."

Blinking again, Lloyd turns back to his press. He meant to unscrew it, but somehow, he has put all of them back on. He frowns, wondering when and why that happened. He starts at the bottom right one, confused.

"I don't feel like talking," he says, voice croaking with lack of use, "He's dead. That's all there is to it."

Wu sighs, low and slow. "I'll be here when you're ready."

When, like the event is inevitable. Lloyd resists the urge to roll his eyes as he moves to the next screw. He wants to see his flowers.

Wu doesn't leave like Lloyd expects him to. He stands watching him for a while, then says, "That isn't all I wished to discuss."

Lloyd pauses.

"Ray and Maya—Nya's parents will be here tomorrow to pick up his things."

Lloyd stares at his uncle, scarcely breathing for a second—several seconds, before he nods. "Okay."

"I wanted you to know."

"Okay." Lloyd nods again, jerking.

He looks back at his press and blinks a few times. All the screws are in place. How did that happen? Cursing in frustration, he slides his press away from him and puts his head in his hands.

Wu still won't leave.

* * *

**Shorter than usual, but the next chapter is longer. Thank you for reading, and thank you all so much for the lovely reviews! Have a wonderful day!**


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Lloyd experiences one of the most embarrassing moments in his life, a remarkably high bar to cross, given his track record.

It starts when Ray appears uninvited in the workroom, finding Lloyd in his chair. Though he sits before his press, he's given up trying to open it in favor of staring blankly out the window and hoping his thoughts will go numb.

When Ray enters, he looks up.

"Hello, kid," Ray greets, his smile plastered and sad.

Lloyd eyes the shaky smile for what it is and wonders who this man thinks he's fooling. He turns back to the table. "What do you want?"

He doesn't see Ray's response, but the tone is surprisingly level as he replies, "I came for Kai's things. I'm told he spent a lot of time here, recently."

Lloyd swallows, and it doesn't go easy. "On the table."

Ray already sees it, walking over to examine the railing, which still sits unfinished and half made. The tools are lying just as Kai left them: scattered across the table and floor and waiting to be picked up again.

A thought strikes Lloyd that Ray will touch something he shouldn't, so he turns to watch him, agitated.

Ray stares at the table, hands folded before him. The seconds tick by.

"Where are you taking his stuff?" Lloyd asks, running his fingers along the back of his chair.

Ray takes a moment to respond, and Lloyd realizes he's gathering himself, overcome with emotion as he stares at his son's work.

"Home," he sputters.

"His home is here," says Lloyd, unable to hold eye contact when Ray raises his head.

Ray looks at him in silence, then back at the railing. With one careful hand, he slides a touch down one of the rods. This one is Jay's, a product of a long night's work that Kai was still perfecting when Lloyd left the room. At the present, it looks finished, but whether Kai meant to leave it like that is lost on Lloyd. It's beautiful, of course, and under Lloyd's sharp gaze, Ray admires the craftmanship.

He doesn't move anything. He just looks.

"He was going to mount that on the gates," Lloyd explains to fill the stifling silence, "Once he finished. There's a piece for each of us."

Ray nods, swallowing. "Last time I saw him blacksmith, he couldn't pound a nail out of a strip of steel."

Lloyd picks at his fingernails, trying to distract from the burn in his chest. A second passes before Ray speaks again, and what happens next makes Lloyd want to crawl into a dark corner and die.

Ray starts, "Where is Kai's piece?"

Lloyd then freezes as some horrible, awful feeling washes over him. He looks at the table, scanning every piece, and Ray is right; Kai isn't there. He hadn't gotten to making it yet.

Lloyd suddenly feels so much worse than he did, devastated in a way he hadn't thought possible. Kai isn't there.

Then Ray says, "If you want, I could finish this up for you—"

"_No!"_

Lloyd's voice rings in the silence, the loudest thing this room has heard in weeks. Ray startles in surprise, and Lloyd can't help but share it, unable to believe he'd spoken so harshly.

Ray waits, inviting Lloyd to explain himself, but Lloyd is suddenly tongue-tied. He can't explain himself in a way that Ray will understand. He wants the railing done, but he wants Kai to be the one to finish it.

If Ray so much as moves one of the many pieces on the table, it wouldn't be Kai's work anymore. It will be someone else's, a strange mix of artistic vision that might look nice, but it wouldn't be Kai's.

And Lloyd would know that every time he looked at it. The railing is Kai's work; it isn't fair for someone else to finish. Even Ray.

Lloyd wants to explain this to Ray, feeling he owes the man as much, but all he can say at the moment is, "I don't want you to finish it."

His ears burn, and he ducks his face in shame. Ray nods.

After a while, he leaves the room without taking anything.

* * *

Lloyd kicks himself for that scene the rest of the afternoon, and it figures that he makes it worse later in the day. It seems that Lloyd has gotten good at digging himself a hole in his years of suppressing his emotions until they won't suppress anymore.

Zane appears at the workroom door two hours after Lloyd should have eaten lunch, saying that packing was finished and they need help moving the boxes. He asks if Lloyd has eaten, if he would like a water before lifting heavy boxes, but Lloyd refuses.

He just follows his friend outside, certain his feet have turned to stone for how they drag. All the same, he makes it to the courtyard and participates in one of the hardest tasks he's ever been asked to do.

Maya tells them to keep what they'd like to remember their brother by, but no one appears to take up the offer. A bottle of hair gel, a treasured shirt, or a sword don't mean much without the person to make it special. Lloyd can't bring himself to look at Kai's things, so he grabs the boxes or tubs that are sealed tight on top.

He doesn't want to see them, for fear of what he might do, like yell, or worse, cry. He could barely tolerate sitting in the workroom with the knowledge that Kai's piece isn't with the rest of the rods.

Besides, it is easier to believe that Kai will come back if his stuff is just as he left it. If he comes back now, there won't be a place for him in the monastery, and that disturbs something deep in Lloyd's gut that bothers him all the way up to his head.

The task is spent in silence, and all his friends have long faces that Lloyd decides not to look at. The worst of them all is Nya, who spends most of the time talking with her parents instead of helping, not that Lloyd can fault her. For the first time, he wonders what happened after he bolted the day before, what was said to her or what she said after she stopped crying.

Frankly, it doesn't look like she ever did. When Lloyd first glimpses her, she's in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. Her eyes are red and puffy, and though she isn't sobbing, her breaths are reedy and ragged. Lloyd shudders at the thought of crying so hard that one needs water, and he wonders if that's what happened to her. It's possible, he guesses.

He hasn't ever let himself cry that hard, not even when his father crushed the Bounty. The green ninja has to keep it together, for himself and all of Ninjago. He is the strong front that finds the light in the darkest of situations.

That's his job.

Lloyd wants to talk to Nya, but he doesn't know what to say. He's still having trouble looking at her, too, so he figures he should wait.

Until when is a separate question, but it buys him more time to figure it out.

He manages to keep himself together until he spots the top end of one of Nya's mechanical katanas for her earliest Samurai suit sticking out of a box Jay passes by with. Concerned, he shifts his own tub to place a hand against Jay's arm.

"Hey," he says, "That's Nya's. It shouldn't be there."

Jay turns, wearing the same expression he's had for the past few days, except fresh off another cy. "It's in the right box."

"What?" says Lloyd, halting right in his tracks.

Jay frowns, and around the van where they're loading the boxes, his friends look up. "We—you don't know?"

Lloyd looks up and sees everyone staring at him. Everyone but Nya, that is. "What's going on?"

In his misery, Lloyd didn't really notice just how many boxes they were taking out to the car, and there are a lot, now that he looks. Nya stands with her parents, head down.

Several long seconds of silence pass before she says, quietly, "I'm going home for a while."

Lloyd strains to hear her, and though nothing tells him so, he is convinced he's misheard. "This is your home."

Nya doesn't exactly shake her head, but she turns it sideways in a half shake that makes Lloyd nearly lose his grip on the box as he staggers backwards. He looks around, and the ninja are side eyeing each other.

"You decided this today?"

"Yes."

"But—" Lloyd glances about, furious that he hadn't known. "You're leaving? You can't do that!"

"It's just for a little while," says Maya when Nya fails to respond.

"No it's not!" says Lloyd, rapidly losing control of his tone despite his best efforts not to, "You can't leave!"

He shouts at Nya like she will listen, but she keeps her gaze on the ground.

"I can't stay like this," she says, "not like this."

Lloyd's ears ring. "This is your home!" he repeats, "We're your family!"

"Lloyd." Wu steps towards him, but Lloyd takes two steps back.

"She will return," Zane tries next, voice smooth and level, as it's always been, against all odds.

Lloyd shakes his head, because he's heard this before, if Zane doesn't know it. "No, no, she won't. If she leaves, there's nothing to stop the rest of you!"

"What makes you think—" says Jay.

"That's what you said last time!" Lloyd shouts, wanting to shut up and never open his mouth again. He didn't handle it this poorly last time, and he crumbles under a wave of embarrassment. "You all left! If she leaves, you'll all go, and you won't come back!"

Not unless Kai comes back, and how can Kai come back now if his things aren't in the monastery? How can Kai come back if Nya isn't there to meet him? The weeks have stretched long since he walked out the door.

The air around them is still in the wake of Lloyd's outburst, as everyone is unsure of how to respond. As Lloyd's own words sink over him, he wishes he could curl in on himself and die, furl like a fern and hide under a protective layer of pine straw and leaves.

He stares at the box in his hands so he doesn't have to see his friends' faces, who are glancing at each other in the way Lloyd hates. Nya remains as she was, looking some way Lloyd has never seen her: defeated.

Then Wu steps towards him again, and Lloyd shakes his head, unable to stand this situation any longer.

"Here!" he tosses the box to the ground, "I came to move out Kai's things, not yours!"

The box hits the stone with more force than necessary, and something rattles inside. Lloyd doesn't want to think about it anymore, and with nothing else to do, he marches back inside, intending to go to the workroom and lock the door behind him.

Halfway there, he remembers that Kai's piece isn't on the table with the rest of them, so he turns on the spot. His friends call his name when he appears back outside, and his brisk walk turns into a run. Pushing past his friends, he tears down the mountainside, no destination in mind other than _away._

He runs so fast; he almost doesn't hear Wu calling after him past the whistle in his ears.

He's worn many paths against the landscape during his searches for wildflowers, and he follows one of them into the woodlands, chasing the shadows until he veers off completely and blazes a new trail.

He wishes he could lose himself in the wilderness, wishes he could rip himself out of his body so the pain and embarrassment would go away. He wishes he could run fast enough to lift off the ground. If he could fly, he'd sail up and out of here, into the sky, which still looks more gray than blue despite how the sun shines. He wishes all this, but his speed cannot make up for the weight in his chest. It sits heavy like a rock, round on the bottom and broken on top.

Lloyd runs, huffing and wheezing until he can't anymore, and then he walks. He walks for a while, twisting and turning past trees and looking, purposeless, at the ground as he does. He almost falls off a ledge, because his downturned gaze doesn't see the ground suddenly drop off until he's two steps from falling into a distant mountain creek.

He looks up and sees the foothills stretching far towards the horizon. He's at a ridge almost steep enough to be a cliff. Past the distant mountains, he can see the sky, and a hawk passes over it.

Something about the sight drains him of the frenetic energy keeping him standing, and he all but collapses against the earth, curling against the trunk of a tree and releasing a huff that sounds close to a sob.

He still won't cry, though.

The tree is the sturdiest thing he's felt in a while, so he pushes himself close and wills his thoughts to quell. All is quiet here, but he can't enjoy it with the river of emotions rushing through his head.

His world is falling apart, one family member at a time. He can't help but wonder if it's been happening for a while, and now it is accelerating, worsening the effects. He can picture such an event occurring, in his head. The hills before him heave up and fall away, the hawk falls from the sky and doesn't stop falling, and all that's left is Lloyd on this ledge, spiraling.

Lloyd shakes his head and tries tossing the thoughts away, not wanting his heart to beat any faster than it is at this moment. It pounds in his chest and ears, worryingly fast.

By this time, he supposes he expected Kai to come back, and then he could prevent Nya from leaving at all, from wandering the monastery's halls and crying her eyes out. If Kai came back, everything would be solved, but Kai still hasn't made it to the door. He's lost, plain and simple, and now Nya is too.

Lloyd looks at the shadows behind him and squints, convinced he can see figures passing through the trees. If he imagines, he can spot Kai's spiky head of hair bobbing towards him as he approaches the ledge.

_Hey there, green bean,_ he imagines Kai saying, smiling like he always does, like Lloyd remembers so well, _You're a mess._

Lloyd huffs again, not quite a laugh, but an imitation of one. "And whose fault is that?"

It sounds harsh to Lloyd's ears, so he shakes his head. "Everything has gone wrong without you. The boys aren't themselves. I can't think or act right…" he swallows before he says, "Nya is leaving."

The list goes on and on, past a point Lloyd can see, but Kai seems to know about them already, even the thoughts Lloyd keeps locked in his head. Lloyd looks up and pictures Kai stepping close to the ledge and sitting so that he can hang his legs over its side. It is steep enough a drop to be dangerous, but Lloyd knows that Kai won't fall.

_Tell me all about it,_ he says.

Lloyd wants to, but he blinks, and Kai isn't there. He is alone in the world, and no one can help him. No one can help him here.

* * *

**Thank you to everyone for reading, following, and reviewing this story! You guys rock! (And to the guest who asked where I get my inspiration from; I get it where all writers do, which is basically any place where I can't sit down and write right away, like in the shower, or on a long car ride, or late at night. Though in all seriousness, most of my work is a product of forcing myself to write. If I set aside time to write even as little as fifty words, I can usually find inspiration that way. It's one of those things you have to actively hunt down.)**

**I hope everyone has a wonderful day!**


	7. Chapter 7

By the time he makes it back to the monastery, it is nearly dark. The gates stand open, and when Lloyd enters, Zane is there to greet him at the monastery's steps. He draws a long shadow over the courtyard as he stands.

"Lloyd!" Zane runs to meet him, the relief in his voice so palpable that it makes Lloyd's heart ache.

Unless that is the residual pain from running for so long. Lloyd almost made it as far as the next village in his frenzy. Speaking of which, he needs water.

He bristles backwards as his friend stops just short of a hug. Zane eyes him, either surprised or sad—probably both—and instead brings his hands to his stomach in a tight clasp.

"Everyone is out looking for you," says Zane, "We thought you might've gotten lost, or that you weren't coming back."

"Don't be stupid," says Lloyd, "I wouldn't have gotten lost."

Goodness knows how many hours he's spent combing the woods during his flower hunts. Granted, he didn't know where he ended up today, but he found his way back. Did his family think he was stupid, or too distraught to make appropriate decisions?

The latter option makes Lloyd's blood boil. That could also be the effect of the exertion he endured today, but he has a feeling that it stems from something deeper, something sharp and angry.

"I waited here in case you came back," Zane continues, "I—I'll call everyone else. Would you like to come inside? I made you dinner."

His words spill out fast in a way that Zane rarely talks, and his face is pinched like he wants to say more. For whatever reason, though, he keeps his thoughts to himself as he waits for Lloyd to answer. Lloyd is silently thankful, not in the mood for answering questions or listening to what his family has to say.

"I appreciate that," says Lloyd, pushing past and entering the monastery. It's quiet, but it always is, now. "But I don't feel much like eating."

"You need to," says Zane, following close—very close—behind, "You've been gone most of the day—"

"I'm tired," says Lloyd, "I'm going to go to bed."

Zane chin draws forward as he sets his jaw, but he nods. Lloyd wanders down the hall towards his room, trying not to notice Kai's now empty one (he needn't have worried. When he walks past, Kai's door is shut. So is Nya's).

"Lloyd," says Zane, "About earlier…"

"Can we not?" says Lloyd, turning back, "I don't want to talk about it."

Zane closes his mouth and fiddles with his hands. He looks like he is about to cry.

That makes Lloyd feel like shoving his foot in his mouth. Heart crawling into his throat, he glances away, towards Nya's door. "Is she gone?" he asks.

Zane's eyes dart sideways, and his hands still. "She left a little while ago with her parents."

Lloyd blinks, unable to believe it. "She didn't even say goodbye?"

Zane's mouth thins into a line. "She did, but…"

Lloyd wasn't there. Right.

He digs his fingernails into his palms, poking deep crescents, and decides that it is better this way.

"She wanted us to tell you—" says Zane.

"Save it," says Lloyd, harsher than he expects, "If she wants to tell me something, she can say it to my face."

Sniffing, he backtracks to the kitchen and grabs his glass of water, downing it once and refilling it before making for his room. Zane follows him the entire way, watching him with a strange expression. Lloyd is quickly growing tired of it.

"I'm going to bed," he says, pointedly, by his door, "Maybe you should stop our friends from running around in the dark."

He intends to maybe scare Zane off with a poor attitude, but Zane is stone-faced and quiet. Several seconds pass, but Zane nods.

His face falls back into the pinched expression as Lloyd shuts his door, but he lets him go without another word.

Setting his glass on his nightstand, Lloyd all but falls into bed, crawling up the sheets until he is balled up by the pillows. He's angry—sad, too, but he's been sad for so long that he doesn't even feel it anymore.

That isn't true; he still feels it, but he is used to it. It is the fire in his gut, the intense heat simmering away in his stomach that is new.

As he lies there, waiting for sleep that never comes anymore, he wonders what is wrong with him. He doesn't cry like Jay or Nya, like he so often sees grievers do, and he wonders if he is even grieving at all. Would a grieving person still expect to see their friend walk through a door, or in a room they so often spent time in? When Lloyd lost Zane, and later his father, there were times that Lloyd forgot that they were gone, too, but he wouldn't say that he expected them to come back.

Not like they eventually did.

That makes Lloyd wonder if he ever grieved, and his heart stutters in fear at the thought of it. All in all, he doesn't feel like he is doing this right.

He hates it, and himself, for the problems he creates for his friends. They should have let him go today. He would have come back, and he did.

The green ninja is supposed to be strong. The Lloyd that lost Zane a few years back didn't have this problem. The Lloyd who lost and fought his father again didn't have this problem. Even the Lloyd who thought he lost everything had found a way to pull himself together and go on before he found out that there was, in fact, a chance his friends had survived getting crushed. Somewhere along the line, Lloyd broke, and he's trying to figure out what happened.

Everyone in his family behaves like someone else, nearly unrecognizable, and Lloyd ponders Nya's decision to leave today despite how it makes his chest seize.

Of all the things he expected her to do, this was so far out of reason that it didn't even cross his mind. In some ways he expected Cole or Jay to leave, maybe Zane, but not her. No matter how many times he thinks and rethinks the situation, he cannot justify her decision in his head, just like he couldn't justify anyone else's. She is suffering, yes; she hit Cole and tore the world apart in her grief, a terrifying expression of the process. Next to it Lloyd couldn't help but feel small.

In the face of all that sadness, Lloyd couldn't shed a tear.

He tosses and turns a while, watches the ceiling, and goes mad in the silent emptiness that greets him there. He hears people moving through the hall, as well as low voices that he can't make out, which proceeds only to make him irritated.

He turns to his side, unable to shake the feeling that everything is wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

At some point, he hears a noise and opens his eyes to see Cole's dark figure at his door, sliding it open and stepping in. Lloyd turns his face into his pillow but doesn't have the heart or the energy to tell him to go away.

Besides, Cole has a plate in hand with a banana and a strawberry muffin on it, which he sets next to Lloyd's glass. Then he looks at Lloyd, who just stares, almost cross-eyed, at the folds in his pillowcase.

For a second, nothing happens, and Lloyd counts the seconds until Cole finally inhales.

"May I sit down?" he says in a next to nothing kind of voice.

Lloyd thinks about it and nods. He doesn't see Cole move, but the bed bends under his weight as he sits down at the end of it. Another silence passes that Lloyd isn't sure how to fill, until Cole speaks again.

"Can I talk to you?"

His first instinct is a hard _no_ and a _leave me alone_ for good measure, but this is the first time since Kai died that someone asked for permission. This is also the first time he's heard Cole speak in weeks, though it wasn't like Lloyd was doing much on his own to initiate conversation.

He thinks, then says, "Just don't ask me any questions."

For what it's worth, Cole heeds him.

"We're not going to leave you," he says, "The boys, Pixal, and I, we're going to stay."

"Like you did when Zane died?"

It comes out harsh, and Lloyd is reminded again that Kai isn't coming back and closes his eyes. For every loss he's endured, sooner or later, they always came back. Zane did, Cole did, his father—even Lloyd came back, given the choice.

Somehow, they became a team again, but Kai hasn't returned. Maybe that is why Lloyd is thinking of him so much. If Kai were here, he wouldn't have to think about him because Kai would just be in the other room.

"We've grown stronger since then," says Cole, "Wiser. Our strength is in each other."

He says as much, but he sounds broken. Lloyd turns his head to glance at him, and Cole stares at his hands, which are folded in his lap.

"Then why did Nya leave?" Lloyd asks.

Cole is quiet for a while, not looking up. "I think she thought it was better for her. She's known Kai all her life."

"We knew him, too," says Lloyd, "This is her home."

Cole shrugs, the kind that shudders up and down his entire body. "I can't speak for her. She's in a lot of pain. She sees this as a way of getting better."

Lloyd stares, thinking. "Are you mad at her?"

Another beat of silence passes, but Cole says, "No."

Lloyd huffs, turning back to his pillow. "You should be. She hit you, and yelled at us, and she had the audacity to leave the next day! You should be furious!"

Cole doesn't reply.

That is fine. Lloyd isn't looking for approval. He wants Nya to get better—he really does, but he hardly sees how leaving, no, _ditching_ the rest of her family will do that. Leaving is what destroyed the team before, and it will do so again. Lloyd knows this. He knows.

He sighs, wishing Kai would walk in and make everything okay.

"I can't speak for her," Cole repeats, "But…the rest of us? We'll get through this. We're not going to leave you."

"Tell me how," says Lloyd, "How will we get through this?"

He wants to know, for he feels like he's falling to pieces. All his life, Lloyd has lost things, from family to homes and friends, and he can't see an end to it. If life can take Kai, and keep Kai, what else will it take? Where will it stop? When there is nothing left but Lloyd, or will it take Lloyd too, the last piece in this cruel puzzle?

As he ponders the hole in his heart that he keeps his losses in, thinks that it might as well have.

"We'll get through it together," Cole says, so quietly that Lloyd almost doesn't hear, "I promise."

He presses a hand to Lloyd's back, finished. A promise from Cole isn't meant to be taken lightly, but Lloyd debates himself as he stares at the wall, not sure if the chance is one he is willing to take anymore. If life can take Kai, and if Nya can walk away, what else comes afterward?

The wall is gray, and so is the sky, and his friends. Lloyd doesn't think it will ever be the same.

Still, it was nice to hear Cole talk again.

He takes the muffin and hopes that Zane won't mind washing crumbs out of his sheets.

* * *

**Alright, I feel like that was a lot of angst for the past few chapters. I promise the next one picks up a bit. Thank you for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

His book of wildflowers is long overdue, but Lloyd hangs onto it, for it is one of the few things left from when life was perfect. He almost had a hobby, and he had an entire family to show off to.

Now, he doesn't do more than look through the book, staring at the pages as his mind dwells elsewhere. He wonders what would happen if he never took it back to the library. He'll rake up fines, but he can't imagine they'll make him pay.

They would, of course, but Lloyd doesn't think about that. It is irresponsible for him and everything the green ninja stands for, but that role is not one he thinks he can fill anymore. What is a ninja without their team—their _entire_ team—and where would the green ninja be without Kai? If it weren't for Kai, Lloyd would've died in the temple of fire, just a bad memory for one too many people.

Whatever Lloyd is now, it isn't who he used to be.

With Nya gone, the summer months are twice as strange and oddly lonely. The monastery seems empty despite the activity slowly beginning to occupy it again. The ninja fall into a routine, not exactly a good one, but where they constantly adjust around the broken pieces of themselves so they don't cause someone to shatter.

Jay now has three expressions a week and doesn't cry anymore, and Zane is more likely to be found staring off into space in lieu of chores. Silence still grips the monastery in an omnipresent hold, but it is no longer still.

Pixal has reappeared from a long stay in the base, often spotted wandering the courtyard or occupying empty areas in the monastery, doing little more than taking up space. Cole keeps his promise, and no one leaves as, little by little, they get through the day.

Lloyd wouldn't say that they are healing or even moving on from their losses, but they aren't moving backwards. That is a plus in Lloyd's book.

He has stopped sitting in the workroom, having grown to hate the presence of the unfinished railing but unable to bring himself to move it in any way. Instead, he goes outside to a gray sky and flips through his book to keep his mind buzzing with white noise. He sees many flowers on the mountainside as the summer brings new growth to replace the spring's, but he doesn't search for more or even stop to look at them.

He has a lot to tell Kai and hardly the mental capacity to remember everything. If he finds new flowers, then he'll forget others, and they are just as important.

So he sits on the monastery's steps and watches the clouds roll across the sky, sheltered in the shade beneath the monastery's walls.

Sometimes, during a hot day that makes waves on the distant stones, Lloyd will squint and imagine Kai at the bottom of the mountain. He sits on a step with his back to Lloyd, a flash of red along the gray. His head is turned away, and Lloyd pretends that Kai is resting, pausing on his way back up.

Lloyd wouldn't say that he expects Kai to come back anymore. He knows that Kai is gone and figures that Kai would've gotten here already if by any chance he wasn't killed on that day. But in quiet moments, the daydream lingers.

It gets harder to picture with time, and even now, the picture of Kai wobbles unsteadily on the rocks.

In place of the daydream, Lloyd likes to entertain the idea of how his family would react if Kai came back, the kind of joy they'd experience. It would be too big for the monastery, so big that it pours out the windows so the whole world knows.

Lloyd pictures it as happening like this: everyone is out in the courtyard, even though they haven't trained together in months. He can't clearly see what they would be doing together, but it doesn't matter, because at the moment that everyone least expects it, the gates open, and Kai is there.

Kai will walk through the door, surprising everyone with a smile. Then, before Lloyd can even stand up in hello, Kai will turn to reveal Nya trailing behind him. Her hair is combed, and she looks as cheerful as she always was, if a little annoyed (perhaps at some comment Kai made on his way up). The sight was once so common that Lloyd doesn't struggle to picture it.

The best part is imagining everyone's reactions. There is a split second of silence, then the air is full of noise. There are shouts and cheers as they run to hug—a nice big group hug, Lloyd thinks, longingly—and the air is full of joy. The air is alive.

He almost smiles, because everything would be perfect.

"I have so much to tell you," Lloyd says, quietly to the wind.

As the sound carries away from him, he wonders if Kai can hear his words where he is. He wonders if Nya can.

One day, he's balancing his library book across his knees and hoping that it doesn't go skittering down a few ledges when Jay walks up the stone steps. Lloyd stares at him in silent surprise, wondering when and how Jay left. Lloyd has been out here all day, working a fantastic ache into his back, and he didn't so much as see Jay walk past.

Moments like this have happened a lot in recent weeks. Odd moments and seconds are lost on Lloyd, a gap in his memory that he can't account for despite his best efforts. It is starting to concern him, thinking of what else he's lost and hasn't yet realized.

Jay approaches, and Lloyd notices something else about him; he has a flower in hand, a tall specimen with a black head and yellow petals.

"Can you help me?" Jay asks with a smile, something he has to work onto his face as he stretches muscles in a way they haven't been in a long time.

Lloyd eyes the flower and knows exactly what Jay is up to. He's trying to incite Lloyd into identifying flowers again, to live life instead of passing through it. The problem with that is that Lloyd isn't interested in learning anything new. In fact, he would be content if nothing happened to him ever again.

"I can't."

The expression falls, just like that. "Why not?"

Lloyd looks down, mumbling, "I always showed Kai my flowers."

He feels silly, but Jay cocks his head, thinking about the answer. His friend looks first at the sky, then down the monastery steps, like he can see Kai waiting there, too. Of course, there is nothing there.

"He's not coming back," says Jay.

There is no condescension in his voice, but the statement still spikes pain in Lloyd's chest.

That said, it probably hurt Jay just as much to say it.

"I know."

"You can't wait around for him," says Jay, choosing his words carefully, "You'll get stuck."

"That's the idea," says Lloyd, "I don't want—"

Jay turns as Lloyd cuts himself off.

Lloyd stares at the steps, eyes stinging. Many changes have occurred in Kai's absence, and Lloyd doesn't want to add to that, bothered by the idea that Kai will no longer be there for any of it. Kai was a big person, a booming personality that doesn't deserve to be left behind like this, a memory forever frozen in one place.

"I—" he says, wishing Jay would stop staring at him, "I don't want to learn anything new."

Jay furrows his brow.

"I don't want to forget what I've learned so far," Lloyd offers instead, like that makes any more sense.

The excuse is a sorry one, and Lloyd waits for Jay to discount it, fight on the matter.

But Jay says, "Isn't that why you started pressing them in the first place? So you'd see the flowers just how they were?"

Lloyd blinks, having forgotten about pressing flowers entirely. He hasn't touched his press since he failed to open it.

* * *

He walks into the monastery later in the week to find his friends waiting for him, sitting at the dining area. Leave it to Jay to blab, but for once, Lloyd isn't upset to find that they've been talking about him behind his back.

Well, he isn't upset after they've revealed themselves. At first, he's suspicious, and the initial sight of his friends gets him worked up.

When he comes inside after a long day of watching the sky, Zane, Cole, Jay, and Pixal are waiting for him at the dining table. The first thing that Lloyd notices is the fact that they haven't sat all together for a meal since before Kai died, and seeing everyone together like this makes the absences all the more glaring.

The second thing he notices is that something is up, and that something thankfully chases the first thought from his mind. The expressions on his friends' faces don't exactly betray smiles, but it is the most 'we're up to something' look Lloyd has seen in a while.

"What's up?" Lloyd asks, holding his book to his chest.

Jay looks at Cole, and Cole reaches to his side and pulls up a paper bag, a cheap craft store logo crinkling on its side. He sets it against the table, and something heavy shifts inside.

"This," Cole says, "is for you."

Suspicious, but nevertheless curious, Lloyd sits and cautiously sets aside his book. Cole slides over the bag, and after a second, Lloyd reaches to dig around inside. He pulls the contents out one at a time; there are frames, three in all, sheets of thick, stocky paper, two different kinds of tape, and a nice pen, the kind used for calligraphy.

Lloyd looks up, and Pixal explains, "For your flowers. When you finish pressing, you can display them."

"And we can hang them around the workroom," says Jay, "Or—you know—wherever. And you can label them if you want, so we know what they are, too."

So no one forgets. Lloyd looks at the collection of stuff, at a loss for words and unable to decipher the mess of feelings washing over him.

Zane says, "That is what the pen is for. I can teach you calligraphy, if you're inclined. That way it will look nice and professional."

Lloyd stares at the table, searching for his words. When he looks up, his friends watch him, waiting, hoping he'll accept their gift. Well…

"Thank you," he says, and the tension in his friends' faces all but disappears.

"That isn't all," says Zane, looking considerably more at ease as he reaches behind him.

Lloyd looks on, intrigued at how his friends could top what they've already done by doing this. There is no way they could know just how much this means to him, but maybe they do.

Yeah, they do.

Zane pulls out a familiar green book and sets it down with a thud. "I purchased you your own book of wildflowers. I think it is time we return the library's."

Oh. Lloyd eyes the book, setting a hand over the library's. Of course Zane would be worried about the fines. He doesn't seem to understand why Lloyd needs _this_ book, and only the library book.

At the same time, however, Lloyd is speechless. This can't have been a cheap gift, and by the looks of it, all his friends pitched in. Just to make Lloyd feel better, just to help him.

His eyes are stinging again, but there is something different about it today. Lloyd almost can't believe it is happening, but he's smiling.

There is a smile on his face.

As he looks back, he realizes that his friends are smiling too, relieved that he likes their gift, or that Lloyd is smiling at all, able to do such a thing after so long.

"Thank you," Lloyd says, almost blubbering as he tries to properly express himself, "Thank you, guys."

He says it again a few more times, because he can.

Later that day, he manages to get the lid off the press, surprising himself when it comes off easily, unlike before. The flowers inside have preserved perfectly, bright in color and just as they were when he put them in. In his excitement, he almost forgets that he can't tell Kai that his tip worked.

He doesn't dwell on the fact, though, because Pixal is sitting next to him, featherlight in touch as she handles the delicate blossoms. Cole helps him set up a frame, a smaller one for the few flowers left from spring, and Jay hammers a nail in the spot of wall Lloyd wants it to hang, banging his thumb once before getting it right.

Zane shows him how to write in a fancy scrawl, speaking slowly while Lloyd practices on another paper. Lloyd is careful to keep his hand steady, mindful in a way that he has never been about his handwriting. The first thing he signs is his name inside the book of wildflowers—his own book—using big, loopy 'L's'.

Then he writes—in as small of a font as he can manage—the names of the flowers next to the stems or under the blooms, the scientific name first, then the common one. By the end of the day, the little frame hangs on the workroom wall. The three flowers left from before life fell apart gaze over the room, and despite it all, the ache in Lloyd's heart hurts a little less.

* * *

**Thank you for reading, reviewing, and following this story! I don't say it enough, but you guys truly are the best! **


	9. Chapter 9

"What kind of flower is that, Lloyd?"

Lloyd enters the living area and slides the door shut behind him with a slam. Zane asked the question from the couch, where he sits watching something while Jay holds a bowl of popcorn, alternating between tossing the kernels in the air and picking his teeth.

"_Commelina communis,"_ says Lloyd, "It's a dayflower—so it only blooms for one day, see? I'm lucky I caught them."

The blooms, sticking out of the top from where he tucked them into his book, are already starting to wilt, so he hurries past his friends.

"Wait!" calls Jay, "Are they pretty?"

"You know it!" says Lloyd.

He might be in a hurry, but he means it. The blooms are a vibrant blue that almost hurts to look at. He'd been able to spot the small darts of color from up several ridges along one of his hiking paths. He was already investigating the stalks they sprouted on when they budded out with blooms, and he was curious to see what they'd turn into.

Bursting through the workroom door, Lloyd sets his book against the table and sets to work.

_Commelina,_ he thinks, repeating the name of the genus in his mind. He likes the sound of it—good for a flower.

He arranges the cluster of blooms across his press, figuring out how he wants it to look. The flowers are beautiful, with two large petals and several stamens curling forward like dragon's tongues. He isn't sure if they'll brown or not, given how quickly he is placing them in the press, but he's learned to accept a rotten flower here and there.

Unfortunately, it happens.

The summer months have rolled late into the year, right into the dog days. By this time, Nya has not returned. Lloyd is in two minds on the matter. He hates her for leaving and is angry that she hasn't so much as called them since she left (Lloyd has seen Jay or sometimes Zane calling her, but he has yet to see a conversation). At the same time, he misses her dearly and wants nothing more than to give her a big hug.

Once she walks through the door, and only then. Lloyd won't accept anything less.

The rest of them have simply resumed taking the days one at a time. A lot has changed since their team fell apart. Two more frames of flowers sit on the walls, and Lloyd is currently constructing another, larger frame.

These changes, while slowly and surely changing the look of the place, are alright by Lloyd, since one only needs to read the names of the flowers to learn of what they missed.

Other changes to not have this luxury. To name one, Cole's hair grew long enough to pull back in a small bun, so he gave it a chop. The result doesn't look noticeably different from when Kai was alive and Nya was here, but Lloyd feels that it is important for them to know.

Another change is that Pixal is learning to cook. She joins Zane in the kitchen when he makes meals, figuring out recipes for the rest of them to try. She follows the instructions to the point that she doesn't add an ingredient unless it is measured out to the exact decimal, and though this at first results in several burnt or otherwise messed up dishes, she does make good food, so long as she has good recipes.

Lloyd has enjoyed eating and sharing her creations with Jay, Cole, and Zane, and he wishes that the rest of his friends were there to join them.

He wishes that every night, and he thinks everyone else does, too.

Lloyd gives the dayflowers one last look before screwing the press on tight. He doesn't feel guilty about adding more flowers to his growing collection, but he still can't sit in the workroom anymore.

He wanders back to the living area and joins his friends on the couch, settling into the middle and snagging the bowl of popcorn from Jay.

"So," he says, "What are we watching?"

"I have no idea," Jay crunches through handfuls of popcorn, "The main guy looks like seven other guys in the film. I'm convinced they're all robots."

"This is a horror flick," says Zane.

"Doesn't change my assessment," says Jay.

A horror flick is usually Lloyd's cue to go, but he remains at his spot, anchored by the need to keep his friends' company. Moments later, Cole appears from his room, and Pixal from the hall. They silently join them, on the floor and on the couch's armrest, respectively.

Another change—a kind of important one—is that they've started sitting together again, and not just on their own time. Every night at dinner, they gather and share a meal. Sometimes, the only conversation is the scrape of utensils against their plates, but other days, they talk.

It is moments like these that Lloyd doesn't want Kai or Nya to miss.

For now, as the film drones on, they start at another conversation. It is easier to work up to this one, since poking fun of films has historically been a pastime for the ninja. Something stupid happens, Jay makes a statement, and the rest of them are left to counter it.

The absences of the scene are still felt, particularly when an explosion happens that Kai would have loved, or when the lead heroine is reduced to 'punches things and falls in love,' a favorite topic of complaint for Nya. All the same, they establish a steady stream of jabs and banter in an echo of their former joys.

Somewhere in the middle, an odd thing occurs. Zane compares the main character's kissing skills to the gasping of fish he's pulled from lakes, and the earnestness in his tone has Lloyd smiling and Jay honking.

Not honking, but that is what it sounds like at first. It is a kind of snort-laugh that is unexpected, to say the least. Everyone turns to Jay, eyebrows raised in surprise, and even Jay looks confused at the noise that slipped out of him.

For a second, they stare at each other before they all break into laughter as they acknowledge the ridiculousness of it all.

When Lloyd looks back at the screen, he can't remember what Zane said and doesn't care. He's caught up in the fact that his friends are laughing—that _he _is laughing, and that they are laughing together. It has only just occurred to him that they haven't done this in months, and that it's been so long that he hadn't realized they'd stopped.

He wonders what else they're missing now that Kai and Nya aren't here. Big things, and little.

As they settle back into silence, Lloyd thinks of Nya, and how she isn't here to experience this. Then he thinks of Kai and realizes what he's done. He frowns for a split second, wondering what could've changed.

For the longest time, the only person Lloyd thought of was Kai, an ever-present ghost on his shoulder. Yet today, he thinks of Nya first.

The change is almost shocking, and he zones out of the rest of the movie as he wonders why it occurred. Is he simply thinking of Nya more and more? Since she left, Lloyd can't say that he's gotten less angry at her, but the pot of rage that kept him from sparing her much thought has since simmered down. Now he can acknowledge, just a little, that he does miss her.

That would explain the 'more' part, but he wonders—with an unsettling feeling in his gut—if he thought of Nya first because he was thinking of Kai less and less. That thought doesn't exactly send his stomach churning with nausea, but it doesn't leave his head for the rest of the film, nor that night, when he tries to sleep.

The next day, he enters the workroom without any flowers, something he hasn't done in a while. It is just as he left it the day before, but he moves into Kai's workspace, eyeing the railing and trying to shake the overwhelming feeling of emptiness that was somehow less potent on the other side of the room.

A fine layer of dust covers Kai's intricately crafted work, as well as his tools. Lloyd almost can't believe that Kai has been gone long enough for dust to settle over his things. Twitching at the thought, he turns and spots a notebook, where Kai has scribbled down various designs, notes, and measurements in what could pass as actual chicken scratch, given how sloppy the handwriting is.

Lloyd tries imagining Kai walking in, looking over the table and telling Lloyd what he plans to do next, but nothing comes to mind.

"How are you?" comes a voice.

Lloyd startles and glances up to see Pixal in the doorway, hovering just outside the frame like she's waiting to be invited in.

Lloyd releases a breath, unsure of how to answer that question. "I'm just thinking."

Pixal gazes around the room and takes a cautious step inside, staying near the wall. She looks over the worktable Lloyd has set his press on. Since the ninja gave him his new book and supplies, Lloyd has almost finished setting up an entire frame for summer flowers, a big one that will require a lot of wall space.

"Your flowers are looking splendid," says Pixal, voice soft.

She doesn't smile, but her eyes are lit up in a way that lets Lloyd know how impressed she is. That makes him feel good, though the feeling is dampened when he returns to Kai's work. The flower Kai constructed out of metal sticks out among the pieces, and Lloyd still doesn't know what kind it is.

"Thank you," Lloyd says, when he realizes that he might be letting the silence stretch too long, "It's almost ready to be hung up."

"Where will you hang it?"

Lloyd pauses. "I haven't thought that far ahead."

He rarely does anymore, though he rarely did to begin with. Life as the green ninja made him appreciate the present in a way that most people don't have to, and yet the losses continue to hurt like he didn't appreciate those moments, like it didn't even matter.

It is a mess of emotions steaming in a stew in Lloyd's head, and he wishes that for once he could turn it off and leave it for a while.

Pixal approaches his side and turns her gaze over Kai's work. The gleam in her eyes has not gone away, and looking at her, it suddenly clicks with Lloyd that she was Kai's friend, too. He'd always known this, of course, but he didn't ask.

"How about you?"

"Pardon?"

"Are you okay?" Lloyd asks, ashamed that it took him so long to do so.

Pixal thinks for a while. "Hard to say."

Lloyd nods.

"I am better than I was," Pixal says, "when I didn't think the hurt would ever stop, but it is dwindling, I feel."

Lloyd frowns. "How?"

"I am not sure," says Pixal, though she doesn't seem bothered by this fact like she usually would be, "It is hard to understand. I figured first that I was thinking of Kai less over time, and therefore was thinking less of his death. Then I thought that I was moving on, as you say. What other choice have we, really?"

Each sentence scares Lloyd more than the last, for whatever reason. He stares at the table with wide eyes.

"Does that bother you?"

"What?"

"That," Lloyd takes a breath, "that you might be thinking of him less?"

Pixal is quiet for a moment, watching him carefully. "It is not that I am thinking of him less, per se. I think of Kai a lot, but I realized in the past few months that I was not thinking of Kai, my friend; I was thinking of Kai, my friend who is gone. That is where the hurt came from, and since I've stopped thinking of him in that way, it has dwindled. I still think of Kai, and I always will."

Lloyd blinks. He hadn't thought of it like that, and he wonders if he is doing the same thing. Kai is his friend, but Kai is also his friend who is gone, and Lloyd can't see how to separate the two.

He can't think of Kai without thinking of his absence. He just can't.

He dances his fingers along the back of his hand, trying to think of something to say.

"What about Nya?" he asks, "Do you miss her?"

"Of course."

"How much?"

Pixal furrows her brow but appears to consider the question. "I miss her a lot. And…more immediately, I suppose. Our time with Kai is done, so there is nothing more to gain or lose. We are losing time with Nya, time we should be spending together."

As angry as Lloyd is (actually, that _is_ the reason he's angry), he agrees. "She should come back. We need her here. She needs us."

"I think she will in time," says Pixal.

"You just said we're losing time!" Lloyd backs away from the table, suddenly disgusted, "What is she waiting for? We're her family. We should heal together!"

Pixal watches his spiel. "Why don't you call and tell her that?"

Lloyd pauses. He'd considered it already, but he doesn't know what to say to her. Besides, it doesn't look like the rest of his family is having any luck.

"Do you think she'll answer?" he asks.

Pixal sits back against the table. "She answered me."

"_You've_ called her?" Lloyd turns. For some reason, that makes his stomach roll. "And she answered you?"

"She only answered once."

Lloyd ponders the words, trying to make sense of them. "Did she say how she was?"

"She was very quiet," says Pixal, eyeing the opposite wall, "and didn't say much."

Lloyd waits for her to say more, but that is all. "Did you ask her when she was coming back?"

Not if, never if.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Lloyd," says Pixal, "Why don't you give her a call? Chances are she misses you just as much as you miss her."

Lloyd shakes his head. "I don't know what to say."

"You do," says Pixal, "Tell her what you've told me. Tell her you miss her. Tell her about the rest of us. I am sure she would like to hear it."

The idea makes him nervous. He could say all that and more, but he worries he will get angry.

He worries that he'll yell at her for leaving in the first place, then hanging up and never hearing from her again. As angry as her leaving made him, he doesn't want that. What difference is dead or alive if he never hears from someone again?

Lloyd shudders at the thought. Pixal places a gentle hand on his arm.

"Think it over," she says.

Lloyd nods, and Pixal turns to go.

At the door, she stops and glances up, as though considering something. Then she turns back.

"Lloyd," she says, "I've been looking in on the people behind the incident at Borg."

Something cold settles over Lloyd's shoulders. "Oh. Really?"

"I don't think they acted alone," says Pixal.

Lloyd figured as much, but he hadn't allowed himself to think about it. "Were they working for the Mechanic?"

"Possibly," says Pixal, "I can't be sure, but I do not think we've seen the last of them."

She doesn't say any more, but that is all Lloyd needs to know. Frankly, it is all he can handle. He nods, and Pixal takes her leave, taking small steps out the door. It takes a long time for Lloyd to follow.

That evening, he sits staring at his phone in the living area, slouched on the couch. Wu sits on the other end, drinking tea. He still follows Lloyd around sometimes, as though waiting for Lloyd to open up about his grief.

Lloyd has yet to do it—and he thinks he's made his inclinations very clear—but Wu still waits, ever a patient person.

Lloyd isn't going to talk though, especially today, after his exhausting conversation with Pixal. If he tried to talk now, he would say something he doesn't want to, and it is best to avoid that situation at all costs.

"How was your day, Lloyd?" asks Wu.

Lloyd's personal hatred for that question has grown astronomically in the past few years.

"Mind your own business," he says.

If Wu is surprised or offended by the nastiness of the response, he doesn't give any indication. He just sips his tea, looking lowly and forlorn. Lloyd eyes him and swallows a surge of guilt.

"How have you been?" he asks.

A beat passes before Wu answers. "I have been…better."

Lloyd nods, but Wu continues.

"I never figured it out," he says, quietly like he's talking to himself, "How to handle losing people. I have to relearn it every time."

Lloyd glances down at the response. Now that is…interesting. About what he expected, but not something he expected Wu to admit. Truth be told, Lloyd doesn't know what to do with his uncle's grief. He knows that Wu isn't and will never be the same after losing so many students, but he can't think of a way to be there for his uncle like he needs.

Maybe Wu just needs for the rest of them to be okay.

Lloyd doesn't see that happening for a while.

"Do you think Nya wants to come back?" Lloyd asks, deciding it is a safe question (and Wu did open up a little with him, after all).

Wu peers into his cup of tea like there is something written at the bottom. "She probably already does, but that is for her to decide."

Lloyd huffs. "I should tell her to come back. And that I won't take no for an answer."

"Don't press her."

"Why not?" Lloyd picks at the balls of fuzz clinging to the cushions. "Pressing her might be what she needs. Besides, I miss her."

"Then," says Wu, "Tell her that first. That might be all she needs."

He says no more, and neither does Lloyd for the rest of the time it takes to work up the nerve to dial. By that time, an hour passes, and Wu goes to bed before Lloyd finally picks up his phone.

He doesn't have a plan for what he is going to say, but his plans have a history of being half-baked. At this point, he is sick of his own excuses.

He dials and holds the phone to his ear, almost unable to hear the ringing past the heartbeat in his ears.

He waits several calls, but Nya doesn't pick up. The phone keeps ringing.

* * *

**Thank you all for reading, reviewing, and following this story! I really enjoy sharing it with you!**


	10. Chapter 10

When the sky finally falls, Kai has been dead for six months. Nya has been dead for one. She isn't dead, of course—not to anybody but Lloyd, who thinks she might as well be.

He didn't call again after she refused to answer, and she never called back.

He decides it is for the best, because he might yell at her if he ever gets the chance to talk to her again. He might scream.

The day the sky falls, it hangs low in the sky, pulled down by a dark layer of clouds. Lloyd watches them swirl over the mountains from the workroom window, feeling as empty as the rest of the room.

These moods usually go undisturbed, but today, a knock startles his thoughts. Lloyd tears his eyes from the sky to see Zane at the door, and the look on his face tells Lloyd that this isn't the time to argue.

"What's up?" Lloyd asks, a pit opening in his stomach.

"We've a problem," is all Zane says.

Lloyd follows his friend, and they walk straight to the base. The doors open to reveal Pixal at the other end of the room, typing furiously at a computer while Cole and Jay perch at her side. They look exhausted, all wearied lines and apprehension.

"What's going on?" Lloyd asks as he approaches.

"Looks like those rats came out of hiding," says Jay, nodding towards the screen.

Over several windows, call logs and maps line the screens, flashing different colors. As Lloyd watches, Pixal pulls up a map.

"Something is happening in Ninjago City," Pixal starts, "An agricultural supply plant several miles west reported a robbery to local authorities early this morning. The entire place was cleared out and left in ruin."

"Who would rob an agricultural plant?" asks Cole, "What would they take; several tons of chicken feed?"

"Try advanced machinery," says Pixal, "Among items stolen were parts used for tractors, grinders, and other large-scale equipment—some of them were blades as large as this table, here."

Lloyd eyes the spot she indicates on the map. "Doesn't sound like a problem for us."

Pixal casts him a surprised, then worried, frown. "I wouldn't say that."

Beside them, Cole folds his arms, head tilting down like it does when he is distressed. Lloyd would ask what is wrong, but he can't bring himself to speak up. Frankly, he's having trouble feeling anything.

"Similar reports have been popping up in districts all over the city," says Pixal, "Either a robbery or robbery in progress. Each target carries some form of technological prowess. Lloyd—" Pixal faces him, "They've been laying low throughout the summer, but I believe these are the same people involved with Borg."

A silence follows in the wake of her statement, and Lloyd stares at the screen, wondering why these people are striking now, and in so many places.

He swallows. A fire burns in his chest, and in the corner of his eye, he sees his other friends twitching, with Zane fiddling and Jay balling his hands into fists.

"Are these the same things stolen from Borg?" asks Lloyd.

"Not exactly, but within the ballpark," says Pixal, "I'd recommend putting a stop to it."

"They could be stocking up," says Cole.

"That doesn't change Pixal's statement," says Zane, "How many people are involved right now? Is it the Mechanic?"

"No definitive sightings of him," says Pixal, "but the weapons are of his design. How many other crime bosses have advanced tech on hand?"

A beat passes, and Jay inhales. "Where are they now?"

"My radios report three altercations in progress," says Pixal, fingers dancing where she rests her hands in an almost agitated manner, "One at a university lab, another in a warehouse, and one in a research center outside the city. These might not be the only ones."

"Of course not," Lloyd almost groans, but he saves the tone at the last second. Now isn't a good time to show his apprehension.

He steps back, drawing a shaky breath. By all accounts, they should put a stop to this, and it doesn't sound like a big mission—not compared to what they've faced so far. They can do this.

His friends glance at him, waiting for command. From this angle, the group looks very small.

They can do this, Lloyd tells himself, because what other choice do they have? The world was going to move on whether they were ready for it or not.

"Let's suit up," he says.

* * *

They take the Bounty to the city, with Cole following below in a separate vehicle and Pixal flying in the Samurai suit. Looking back, Lloyd thinks they could've all fit in with Cole, but as they left the mountain, he couldn't help but feel that they were going through the motions.

That said, the inclusion of the Bounty allows them the flexibility of splitting up, a valuable option once they see how many attacks are going on in the city.

"The reports all seem to be in the same area," says Lloyd, "I think we could handle them separately, that way we can stop them all at once. Zane and Jay, you take the university. Pix, you take care of the research facility. Cole and I will take the warehouse."

"Wait—" Cole's voice sounds over the radio.

"Make sure you stop them from making off with anything," says Lloyd, "Don't let anybody escape, but don't put your life on the line, either," he swallows, "Then we'll see what started this."

At his side, Jay and Zane nod. He doesn't need confirmation over the radio to know that everyone heard him, and the silence where he would've spoken with Kai or Nya sticks out like a sore thumb.

When they reach the city, he tries summoning the will to do this, but the mantle of the green ninja seems too heavy to take up after months of sitting on the sidelines.

Before they go, Cole blurts, "Wait, guys—I don't think we should split up."

A beat passes that feels akin to a punch to the throat. Unsure of how to respond, Lloyd stares blinking at the radio, and no one takes over the job for him, either.

"We'll be in pairs," he says, "We'll be fine."

He doesn't get a reply, and they split without another word. Lloyd drops to the vehicle with Cole, and Jay and Zane take off in the Bounty. Pixal flies away, sparing them one last look as they drive towards the warehouse.

The warehouse in question is a storage facility for a larger factory, and between the mess of parts inside and operating machinery, it is a prime location for the likes of the Mechanic. The building is already in bad shape when they arrive, with a wall blown out that a hodgepodge kind of mech moves in and out of. On the ground, two men stand armed to the teeth.

Upon seeing Lloyd and Cole, they promptly take aim, spreading out as the mech behind them stops what it's doing and turns. They don't look concerned at their appearance; if anything, they sneer.

"Tactic?" Cole asks.

"Disarm and disable," says Lloyd, "Can you get that mech from here?"

"Yes, but there's a good chance he'll shoot back," says Cole, fingers twitching around the controls.

"Just take care of it," says Lloyd, "Keep it off the building, will you? I'll deal with these guys."

"Lloyd," Cole starts, but Lloyd jumps from the vehicle before he can finish.

They need to keep this as brief as possible, because Lloyd doesn't think he can handle anything larger right now.

He inhales, mustering his best 'big speech' tone, "Getting bold for a siege like this, aren't we?"

The men don't seem to buy Lloyd's front, all but laughing in his face.

"We'd call it practical," says the man nearest to him, twice Lloyd's height and grinning with smug confidence, "Fewer ninja means it's harder to get rid of us."

The blunt admission of their motives alights something in Lloyd's gut that he didn't know was there. It is unexpected, mostly because Lloyd can't believe the nerve of this man, and the rest of this attack, for doing as much and stating why.

His hands burn green against his palms with an unexpected sting, and he winces, confused. His powers are not supposed to burn like this.

He blames the months of inaction, and he blames them again when the energy sparking at his fingertips looses itself in an uncoordinated arc. It lands nowhere near their adversaries, but that is all the signal they need to start firing.

Lloyd spins out of the way as bright darts of ammunition streak past, and in the same second, Cole charges for the mech, flying forward. Lloyd would've preferred if Cole shot from further back, but Cole doesn't fire at all.

His vehicle slams into the mech, backing up just as fast as the mech keels from the force.

Lloyd can't question the action, for the men on the ground fire again. The weapons they use are advanced, like guns, if they fired light instead of bullets. He isn't sure what the projectiles are made of, but they glow red and explode in a sharp cloud of debris when they hit the ground.

The men don't move much except to follow Lloyd's path as he spends the first few minutes dodging their line of fire. He tries summoning his powers more than once, but is met with a burning sting and nothing more.

He makes it to a pile of rubble that was once the wall of the warehouse, ducking behind for a moment of brevity as he tries thinking of a plan.

A better plan than his first, that is. For some reason, his actions feel detached, acting without thought, and communication between him and Cole, normally fast and sharp, is silent as Cole continues his strange barrage behind him.

Lloyd sneaks a quick look at his friend's progress and frowns. The vehicle is equipped with several firearms and even a grappling hook, but Cole doesn't use them. From what little of Cole's face Lloyd can see from this distance, Cole has no clue what he's doing either, just driving into the mech, backing off, and doing it again.

If his goal is confusing the man in the mech, it works, but it does nothing to knock the mech off balance or disable it in any way. The only reason Cole hasn't been stopped yet is because the person at the controls has no clue how to combat Cole's uncoordinated attacks.

In confusion, Lloyd yells, "Get your head in the game, Cole! Attack that thing!"

A blast hits the back of Lloyd's pile, sending a cloud of dirt flying and his head jerking forward with the force. He leaps up in time to kick the barrel of the second man's weapon out of its position towards Lloyd's face. The resulting blast fires past Lloyd into the warehouse, where a crash sounds in its wake.

Lloyd unleashes another ball of energy, landing it squarely against the man's chest. He flies back with a grunt, hitting the dirt hard, and Lloyd uses the opening to turn on his other adversary.

Neither of them seem skilled in combat, so Lloyd thinks if he can get the weapons off them, then he can take them down with ease. His issue is that he can't seem to get that far. While he fusses at Cole, he doesn't fare better in his own fight. Between his unfocused, unpredictable use of his powers, and generally being out of practice, he finds himself getting backed into the warehouse, trapped on defense.

He tries using his powers to end this faster, but they don't work like he expects, burning in his hands while they rest at his sides and fizzling out when he holds them up to fire.

Something is wrong, and nothing he does seems to be working. At one point, the man Lloyd first spoke with gets a shot at Lloyd's chest, and he is just barely able to kick up a slab of roofing in time to protect himself.

The force lands him several feet backwards with an underwhelming, "_Oof!_" as he skids against the warehouse floor, the roofing skittering away from him.

For a second, he stares at a hole in the roof before realizing that something large and heavy falls towards him. Before he can blink or even curl away, something shoots it backwards with a pop that sends dirt and dust stinging through the air.

Lloyd grunts and clambers to his feet, disoriented. When he looks back, he spots Cole's wide-eyed stare, having fired from his vehicle.

He'd shot a piece of roofing material out of Lloyd's path. The debris sits bent in the metal rungs of a shelf, one of many lining the warehouse. The racks bend far out of shape, but they thankfully don't fall.

Lloyd sees what might've happened, and it is written all over Cole's face. Then, spotting the opening, the mech pushes forward and clenches a mighty metal fist, crunching it down on the front of Cole's vehicle.

"Cole!" Lloyd calls, too late.

Another string of red flares fire his way. Lloyd raises his hands again, and this time a wave of green leaves his fingers, barreling forward and pushing his adversaries backwards. It causes their weapons to fizzle strangely, and one of them sparks and starts smoking.

As they look over it with concern, Lloyd runs for the cover of the shelves.

He needs to regroup—he needs to make sure Cole is _okay._ First he needs to get past these men; no, he needs to take care of them now and show them just what they are up against.

What are the Mechanic's plans, or anyone's, next to grief?

This thought raises him a problem. Lloyd doesn't know enough about grief to know if he's been doing it right, but it feels wrong. He hasn't cried like Jay, shut down like Cole, or cast away everything in a fit of rage and sorrow like Nya. Lloyd has been something else entirely, and he suffers for it.

He sees that now, in both his poor handling of this mission so far and his inability to fight like he used to.

The way he's handled himself is a problem. He needs to do something. He needs to _act._

Inhaling, he peeks through the shelves of the warehouse racks. The men have split, and one now holds a long metal beam in place of his weapon—good. They follow Lloyd at either side of the warehouse, peering down the aisles.

Their gazes are sharp, no doubt aiming to finish this.

Lloyd swallows, considers his options, and fires into one of the many surrounding shelves. The force rattles through the metal, knocking down boxes and sending metal parts clattering over the shelves and floor.

As Lloyd suspects, the first man fires at the sound, and the explosion causes the shelf to fall. It knocks against the next shelf, and the force trails throughout the building like a line of dominoes.

The noise is incredible, and Lloyd presses his hands over his ears as he ducks out of the path of destruction. He hears someone yell, but it is lost almost the instant it begins.

As the chaos settles, he thinks. They don't exactly have a plan, which means Lloyd has failed. He needs to get it together.

He runs to edge of his aisle, scanning the walls when a hand surprises him by grabbing a fistful of his suit and yanking him backwards. Lloyd yelps as he's thrown against several boxes and parts, and the next thing he registers is a weapon pointed at his face.

"Think you're smart, do you?" says the man at the other end, "You're just a bunch of stupid kids. Always were."

Lloyd's heart leaps to his throat as the weapon clicks, and in the next second, he kicks out against one of the man's legs, not quite knocking the large man off his feet, but sending him off balance. The blast jolts upwards, dangerously close but flying into the ceiling.

He attacks again, pushing the man down, and Lloyd finally gets the opportunity to kick the weapon from his hands. It is sleek and unusually well put together for the likes of this man—or the Mechanic, for that matter.

Lloyd doesn't give it much thought, preparing to knock the man unconscious, but before he can act, someone shoves him aside. Lloyd's mouth falls in silent surprise as he trips sideways, and the man has enough time to stand up.

He thinks it is the second man to have done this, but he turns and sees Cole standing there, disheveled and shaking as he grabs the man by the collar and clocks him across the jaw.

It is a quick but effective defeat, almost embarrassing on Lloyd's part. The man slumps to the floor, and for a second, Cole stares at Lloyd, breathing heavily.

His mask is gone and his hair flies all around his face. His dark bangs fall over his eyes, but Lloyd still sees the intense stare burning through them. The look inside is downright haunting.

Lloyd is so caught up in it that the anger he feels regarding getting pushed (because _he had that, Cole!_) all but disappears, and he misses the second man crawl out of the shadows and jump Cole from behind.

"Cole!" Lloyd exclaims, standing to help, "I got him!"

He rushes forward, but Cole pushes him away again, nearly off his feet.

On his own, Cole goes after his attacker, all fists. No spinjitzu, no elemental powers, just uncoordinated manpower. It is an odd and disturbing sight; one Lloyd would be worried about if he weren't getting so angry.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

Cole doesn't respond. The fight should be over, but Cole doesn't so much as use his super strength.

"Cole!" Lloyd shouts. His hands burn again, and he raises them together to take a shot from this angle.

The green light warps in the air, bright and flashing. The sheer rage from this fight and this situation has the color bouncing off the walls, almost blinding, but Lloyd doesn't look away. He stares down the man before him through the gaps in the waves of green, angry at himself and these past few months, when Cole suddenly backtracks and closes a hand over Lloyd's wrist, squeezing hard.

This in itself is dangerous, but Cole doesn't let go, drawing Lloyd's fist sideways and causing the energy to fly at a distant wall, missing someone who should very well have been defeated by now.

"Don't—" Cole says, voice coming out through his teeth like he has to force it through.

"What is the matter with you?" Lloyd asks. He yanks on his hand and immediately wishes he'd kept his mouth shut when he spots Cole's unseeing, blazing gaze again.

In short, it doesn't look good. Though Cole's grip is iron, his entire body quakes.

"Cole?" says Lloyd, alarmed.

A dart of red shoots between them, just missing the side of Cole's face and startling both of them enough that Cole lets go and Lloyd stumbles back.

The blast hits somewhere behind them, and at the sound, Cole bends. Lloyd turns, sees the man holding his companion's gun, and finally releases his powers.

He fires a sharp burst, without a thought.

The man falls at the blow, and Lloyd releases a sigh of what he decides is relief. He hits the man over the head before he reaches the floor, and the blaster clatters and sparks. Smoke rises in its wake, to which Lloyd steps back.

Nothing happens, though, and in the next second, the only sounds are the lingering shifts and creaks of the wrecked warehouse and the fast, broken breaths that Cole is sucking in and out. He still stands bent over, hands on his knees and looking on the verge of collapse.

Lloyd stares, shocked and suddenly afraid.

"Uh," he says, once he finds his voice.

Cole stares at the ground, trapped in his own world. A beat passes, and Lloyd places a bracing hand on his friend's back, hoping to steady him, if he is capable of such a thing.

"Cole, please talk to me," he says, "What happened?"

Lloyd glances about as Cole continues his…whatever this is, for Lloyd hasn't seen it before. Trying to gather himself, he spots the wall that Cole sent Lloyd's ball of energy towards. It was the same that was wrecked to begin with, though the hole in it sits twice as large. It was a calculated deflection, Lloyd realizes.

That side of the room is out of the way from anything that could directly or indirectly bring them harm.

Outside, Cole's vehicle sits in flames, the mech's fist still imbedded in its hood. The mech itself is wrapped in Cole's grappling hook, though the controls sit empty. Lying against the ground outside is the third man, hands behind his back.

"Cole," Lloyd repeats, "I need you to talk to me."

He needs Cole to tell him what to do, for he's never felt more lost.

Several minutes pass, and as Lloyd debates himself, Cole finally and abruptly straightens, bringing his hands to his face.

He breathes in, then out. It is a slow process, like an exercise, and it lasts a while until he finally takes his hands away. He stares at Lloyd, swaying like he is about to fall. Lloyd steps closer just in case.

"What happened?" Lloyd asks, quieter now that he looks Cole in the face.

When Cole speaks, he stutters, "The roofing almost got you, and I—I saw the shelves fall. I thought you were under there."

Lloyd shakes his head. "I was fine. They didn't get me."

Cole doesn't look reassured, and it hits Lloyd now what it must have looked like from his perspective, to see his friend in that situation.

"I'm okay," says Lloyd, "Cole, it's okay."

"No, it isn't," says Cole, "Nothing is ever going to be okay. Not anymore. You could've died, Lloyd. You could've died."

His voice quavers like it never has in the past, though Lloyd hates the statements Cole makes. He holds off on an insistent, _but I didn't, _hardly feeling it helpful.

Instead he says, "There were many other times we could've died. Like—like you messing up my attacks! That has nothing to do with…the shelves, or the roof."

"It has everything to do with that!" says Cole, suddenly loud, "Don't you see what happened? Your powers nearly killed you!"

"What are you talking about?" the volume, as well the argument, anger Lloyd, "Most of that was just the situation! And what about you? You just sat there and let that mech attack you! You didn't do anything to defend yourself—no missiles, no grappling hook—"

"Something that extreme could've blown up in our faces," says Cole, closing his eyes, "The missiles, the mech, our powers, they could've brought down the entire building. You would've been crushed."

"Don't say that!" says Lloyd, "I might not have been in the building if you'd acted right away. Attacking would've been better than refusing to defend yourself. You could've died, too."

He says it, then hates himself for doing so when Cole deflates before his very eyes. His friend shrinks and sinks down until he's sitting against the racks of a fallen shelf. Staring at him, it clicks as to what went wrong, here. Cole was defensive to the point of destruction, and while Lloyd understands, he doesn't know what to do with this information.

"Look, shoving me out of the way isn't going to 'keep me safe' or whatever," says Lloyd, throwing his hands out for lack of anything else to say, "And refusing to do anything drastic in the face of an attack isn't going to help, either. If anything, it makes our jobs more dangerous!"

"I know that," says Cole, "I know."

He looks like a turtle again, curling into his shell and closing himself up tight. Looking it over, Lloyd realizes just how their team failed in the months since Kai died. They haven't talked about this.

They never spoke of losing someone and what it did to them, because sooner or later, that someone came back. It was easier, in the past, to sweep those feelings under the rug, but that was never a solution.

"Keeping everyone from fighting isn't going to stop us from getting hurt," says Lloyd, sitting next to Cole, "It will just make it more difficult to stop the bad guys."

"It isn't the bad guys that bother me," says Cole, sighing, "Back on—that day—it wasn't the people I was chasing that killed Kai. It wasn't the Mechanic or his stupid cronies. It wasn't even the explosions in the labs…it was the damage. He walked in there and got hurt and just—he couldn't leave—"

Lloyd quiets, losing his breath as Cole continues.

"He died from something so innocuous. How many times had he—or any of us—gone back into dangerous places and made it out okay? You just—it isn't even something I think about, when planning these missions. I don't think about it like I do other things, like enemies, weapons." Cole brings his hands to his face, but he doesn't cry, not yet. "And now, it is all I can think about. Everywhere I look, there is danger. The roof could've caved, the shelves could've crushed you, your powers could've shattered something and harmed you. All this could've happened, and there would've been nothing I could do."

Cole heaves another shaky breath, brow furrowed. "I told myself on that day, that if I could do something, anything, I might be able to save you from that."

Lloyd stares. "Cole," he says, "I appreciate that, I really do, but you realize that everything you just listed is beyond your control. What happened to Kai was beyond your control. You couldn't do a thing about it if you tried."

Cole shakes his head. "I can't bear _not_ trying. I can't fail the rest of you like I failed Kai. I won't do it again."

"What are you saying?" Lloyd stands, heart pounding, "You didn't fail Kai, nor will you fail any of us! You've always done your best to make sure we're okay, even at your own expense. There's just some things you can't control, and like it or not, you'll have to accept that!"

His voice gets louder the longer he continues, but he really doesn't mean to yell. Cole curls in on himself, regardless.

"I know," says Cole, "but I can't help but look back. I think of every decision I made that day, big and small, and I wonder what could've been if I'd done just one thing different. If I made another choice, if I had gone with him, or risked someone else's life, I wonder if there was something I could've done to change what happened that day. These thoughts haunt me, Lloyd."

He sounds terrified, and Lloyd stills. Had Cole been thinking this for all this time?

"I understand."

"Really?"

"Yeah," says Lloyd, sitting again, "That morning, before you guys left, I saw him. I was up, about to go on a flower hunt, and I bumped into Kai. He told me not to worry about it, so I stayed home. I stayed because I wanted to, and to this day, there is nothing I regret more."

Cole looks at him with sad eyes.

"I was going to suit up," says Lloyd, "Really, but he told me not to worry. I wanted to stay, so I let it go. I've wondered if things would've turned out differently if I'd so much as woken up the rest of the team."

"Oh, Lloyd." Cole smiles a heartbreaking smile.

The world around them was crumbling under their grief, and for the first time, Lloyd feels like he's getting the full picture. It's a terrible sight.

"I don't think much would've changed if you were there," says Cole.

"I could've gone after him," says Lloyd, "I could've pulled him out of there."

"Or you could've come with me," says Cole, "Or you could've gone into that building and gotten burned. You both could've died."

They stare at each other for a while, and Lloyd says, "I guess that's the nature of accidents, huh?"

Cole nods.

Lloyd stares at his hands, which he folds in his lap. He doesn't feel better about their situation, but the relief at having finally spoken up about some of the feelings tearing through his mind has him sitting straighter than before.

He had no clue Cole felt the same way, but he also doesn't know where to go from here.

Fortunately, he doesn't have long to fret, for Pixal suddenly buzzes in through their damaged radios, startling them from their thoughts. She relays another confrontation as well as a report of her own encounter.

As she passes the address, Lloyd looks at Cole.

"I think we should talk later," says he, "With the whole team."

Cole nods. "I'm sorry for throwing us off."

Lloyd sets his teeth as he stands. "Let's just keep it together until this is over."

It isn't an easy task. Pixal tells them to hurry, and together, they turn the men over to authorities and leave the warehouse.

* * *

**This chapter was rewritten too many times, so _huge_ thank you for reading this far.**

**Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing! You're the best!**


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